Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[queenpea]

Peak players hit around 12,600 this weekend. The last time we saw numbers that high was in May.

The patch seems to have been well received here and elsewhere. For example, a number of positive Civ VII videos covering the patch changes popped up last week over on YouTube.

 

[marius_kaparius]

Peak players hit around 12,600 this weekend. The last time we saw numbers that high was in May.

The patch seems to have been well received here and elsewhere. For example, a number of positive Civ VII videos covering the patch changes popped up last week over on YouTube.

Agree, the comments section have also shifted from purely negative to a mixture of positive and negative and I see more pushback towards comments that reject the game outright due to Civ switching and Eras.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Peak players hit around 12,600 this weekend. The last time we saw numbers that high was in May.

The patch seems to have been well received here and elsewhere. For example, a number of positive Civ VII videos covering the patch changes popped up last week over on YouTube.

I suspect this reflects good sales numbers during the Autumn sale, which would be a positive for Firaxis. The jump up in players is too big to be just players trying out a new patch. That would be some of it, but previous patches didn't trigger this large a bump. Good sales would also be consistent with increased Wishlist activity, as someone noted. As mentioned earlier, the game was heavily promoted during the Autumn sale, appearing almost constantly on the front of the Steam store page, and that seems to have worked.

On the other hand, Steam reviews are still mostly negative, but that may be becoming less important as (a) people are buying the game despite the current poor reviews, and (b) some people are posting positive reviews, which means the community of players who enjoy Civ 7 (and will presumably buy DLCs) is growing.

 

[Kev1916]

Agree, the comments section have also shifted from purely negative to a mixture of positive and negative and I see more pushback towards comments that reject the game outright due to Civ switching and Eras.

Reviews are still negative 58% Neg and 51% Neg

 

[Siptah]

I suspect this reflects good sales numbers during the Autumn sale, which would be a positive for Firaxis.

While sales numbers are up from some weeks ago, they are still less than 10k per week (8.8k according to Gamalytic for the past 7 days). That's probably below sustainable still.

 

[aieeegrunt]

So you're saying I'm right - thank you More seriously, the game needs scenarios. With the exception of Civ 1 and base 6 the other games in the series had scenarios in the base game and it would be much easier to argue for the price tag if it had them. It would also offer more ways to play the game that don't engage with the friction of Era swaps (though that friction needs to be reduced going forward too)

Man the WW2 scenario from Civ2 was legendary

 

[Krikkit1]

So you're saying I'm right - thank you More seriously, the game needs scenarios. With the exception of Civ 1 and base 6 the other games in the series had scenarios in the base game and it would be much easier to argue for the price tag if it had them. It would also offer more ways to play the game that don't engage with the friction of Era swaps (though that friction needs to be reduced going forward too)

Well if they can
1. Let you choose your "Victory Age"
2. provide some True Start Location (not True Switch location which would be more complicated) Maps Either Earth or regions

Then you could do your own scenario
Antiquity Mediterranean
Antiquity North America
Antiquity East Asia
etc.
Exploration Atlantic Ocean
Exploration Europe
Exploration Asia
Exploration Pacific
Exploration Earth*
Modern Europe
Modern Europe+Africa
Modern Americas
Modern Asia
Modern Europe+Asia
Modern Earth*

*Mostly determined by civs chosen for the scenario

 

[sonicmyst]

When things get more polished, I hope they proceed with the planned monthly challenges aka scenarios. That would put some flavor to the game.

 

[UWHabs]

When things get more polished, I hope they proceed with the planned monthly challenges aka scenarios. That would put some flavor to the game.

I think they will help, especially if they set them up mostly as like a single era scenario. It's more or less the perfect length of time to spend on a challenge to garner some competition, without me feeling like I have to dedicate so many hours to completing it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

One of the interesting thing. With the new patch Youtube streamers started showing actual plays again. At least PotatoMcWhiskey and UrsaRyan did it already.

 

[Lebo44]

One of the interesting thing. With the new patch Youtube streamers started showing actual plays again. At least PotatoMcWhiskey and UrsaRyan did it already.

Yes, Ursa likes the changes introduced by the patch pretty much. I also noticed many new streamers on Twitch.

 

[Crashdummy]

One of the interesting thing. With the new patch Youtube streamers started showing actual plays again. At least PotatoMcWhiskey and UrsaRyan did it already.

Ursa never stopped making gameplay videos. But the ones he was doing of VI had more views than the VII ones

I dont see those numbers changing

 

[Leucarum]

I imagine none of the streamers out there want Civ7 to flop, it's been a significsnt component of their livelihoods after all. It's a question of how much engagement they get for their videos I suspect. It wouldn't surprise me if some streamers put up test balloons each time there's a major change to see if people tune in. If it lasts that's good news for Firaxis.

 

[Xur]

A few of the youtubers that covered the latest patch used words like "Huge", "Amazing" and "Massive". I then read the patch notes and I am negatively surprised - again. I've had enough and clicked "Dont recommend Channel" on all of them. I get that's how youtube works, but none of that was objectively true. I shouldn't have been surprised though given the version numbering. Anyone that claims 1.2.4 to 1.2.5 is going to be huge, amazing and massive is straight up lying. Something big might happen for 1.3, but in reality most people are hoping for a 2.0 with classic mode.

 

[MutilationWave]

1.2.5 really did change the way the game is played.

 

[Leucarum]

1.2.5 really did change the way the game is played.

A few of the youtubers that covered the latest patch used words like "Huge", "Amazing" and "Massive". I then read the patch notes and I am negatively surprised - again. I've had enough and clicked "Dont recommend Channel" on all of them. I get that's how youtube works, but none of that was objectively true. I shouldn't have been surprised though given the version numbering. Anyone that claims 1.2.4 to 1.2.5 is going to be huge, amazing and massive is straight up lying. Something big might happen for 1.3, but in reality most people are hoping for a 2.0 with classic mode.

Honestly both of these posts are true.

1.2.5 did a huge change to towns and cities. I would argue that this is a more "core" feature than either ages or civ switching and it was quite frankly utterly broken before. It still isn't where it needs to be - Urban Centers are OP - but this was a huge step forward that needed to be taken whatever Civ7's future is. Be that more of the same or a hypothetical classic mode.

However, does it right the ship and make the game good? No. Modern age in particular is still the worst Civ experience that the franchise has produced. Exploration is braindead. Snowballing is still exacerbated by the age system. Civ switching is made worse by the age system invalidating later choices. Firaxis are still left with a game where they have to make the late game amazing or their design is broken, and since they have never done that before, I very much doubt they'll pull it off now.

However. Antiquity remains utterly amazing and the patch has only made it better.

So. . 1.2.5 = Huge Step Forward and Massive Disappointment. No contradictions?

 

[Siptah]

1.2.5 really did change the way the game is played.

I actually wonder if we have ever had a more consequential patch for any civ game. Sure, the expansions always changed more, but did civ V and VI ever receive a patch that changed how the game is played as fundamentally as 1.2.5 did? Civ VI had some pretty important changes for individual civs, and changing overflow, which was also a massive change for that game's meta and core gameplay. But I don't think it comes close to this one – 1.2.5. is different regardless of your formerly preferred strategy, whether for the basic turn-to-turn loop as in buildings and city/town management, but also how you integrate city states and attributes into your strategy. A lot of the things I learned in the past half year how to end modern in 30-something turns just plainly doesn't work like that anymore.

 

[kotpeter]

I actually wonder if we have ever had a more consequential patch for any civ game. Sure, the expansions always changed more, but did civ V and VI ever receive a patch that changed how the game is played as fundamentally as 1.2.5 did? Civ VI had some pretty important changes for individual civs, and changing overflow, which was also a massive change for that game's meta and core gameplay. But I don't think it comes close to this one – 1.2.5. is different regardless of your formerly preferred strategy, whether for the basic turn-to-turn loop as in buildings and city/town management, but also how you integrate city states and attributes into your strategy. A lot of the things I learned in the past half year how to end modern in 30-something turns just plainly doesn't work like that anymore.

While technically they were released as part of expansions, both Civ V and Civ VI had big patches which revamped gameplay significantly:

• Civ V had a patch with Brave New World which introduced science penalty from increasing number of settlements (I might be wrong on this one, if so, please correct me)
• Civ VI had a patch which significantly nerfed yield bonuses from policies (from +100% yield on yield buildings to +50% yield if 10+ pop and additional +50% yield if adjacency is high) and city-state yield bonuses on districts (initial bonus became +1 yield instead of +2 yield and required a tier 1 building in the district). Not to mention numerous patches which introduced additional adjacency bonuses (+2 from green districts on IZs, +2 from entertainment complexes on theater squares)

 

[Gorbles]

Anyone that claims 1.2.4 to 1.2.5 is going to be huge, amazing and massive is straight up lying.

Saying something you disagree with doesn't make it a lie. The only thing that apparently matters for you is "a 2.0 with classic mode". By definition, it means most / all other changes aren't going to register.

This isn't the case for everyone.

It'd be nice if the rhetoric could be taken down a notch, eh?

 

[Xandinho]

The patch 1.2.5 has definitely changed the way the game is played, and it's now much better, at least for me. I feel a greater impact from strategic decisions now. That said, the game still needs improvement in several areas, especially, as mentioned above, the modern era, which requires special attention. Although there is still a long road ahead, it's undeniable that the game in its current state is significantly better than it was at launch.

Many are questioning that the increase in player numbers over the weekend wasn’t very high. Well, I think it was high enough to say that the update sparked some interest, at least. Personally, I don’t expect anything like 20,000 concurrent players or more anytime soon. That will only happen when they bring the necessary change to win back the franchise’s classic players, which is the Classic Mode.