Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[stealth_nsk]

You seem to be assuming new fans can’t possibly like something for the same reasons old fans do, which I don’t think is actually a safe assumption.

They clearly could like the same things, but they are still different audience. Old fans compare game with previous ones, new players don't, so they perceive the game differently.

If I remember correctly the ChatGPT analysis of Steam reviews, nearly all of them were comparing the game with previous ones (again, it's understandable, since people buying the game for full price on release are mostly old fans). Complains about ages, civ switch, UI, etc. were mostly from this comparison.

 

[user746383]

But if both audiences can at least potentially like the same things, how can it simultaneously be true that they have no choice but to change things and leave the old fans behind, or else quickly fail? That’s the conclusion I’m not getting I guess.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But if both audiences can at least potentially like the same things, how can it simultaneously be true that they have no choice but to change things and leave the old fans behind, or else quickly fail? That’s the conclusion I’m not getting I guess.

If you target only old fans, the audience will shrink. You need to somehow target new ones - at minimum you need to change marketing channels. But there could be also more things to change as new audience means some different demographics - they could be younger, from countries which had less civ players, etc. One of the drawbacks of being market leader is that everybody who is interested in similar games heard about civilization, so the market close to old fans is mostly exhausted. Games like civilization need bigger leap than less popular ones to grab new people.

Actually we're just scratching the surface here. I've learned strategic management and marketing to some degree and decisions like this usually involve a lot of research and planning, taking into account variables we don't even think of here.

 

[user746383]

Ok, if the main point is just that you can’t make new fans by splitting old ones in two, but in theory new fans can like the same things as old fans, then we aren’t actually disagreeing on anything. Thanks for explaining!

 

[itix]

I dont know if this stat makes any sense but here we go: Civ 7, Stellaris and Civ 6 compared on Google Trends (search word frequency - world, all categories, web search). Sorry for Finnish

 

[user746383]

Is it search word frequency @itix ?

 

[itix]

Yes it is @protocol7 (edited my post).

 

[Siptah]

[snip]

Very nice observation! I think some players tried civ 7, decided that it's not finished or good enough yet, but also can't go back to 6. Or took the state of 7 or their dislike of it as a reason to try out similar games.

 

[MutilationWave]

Star Wars

Somehow, the emperor returned.

Old fans aren't going to accept that crap.

Generally we think alike bud, but the sequels just sucked. Didn't really like the prequels either to be honest, although they did have their moments. Rogue One, Andor, Mandolorian season 1, all awesome though.

 

[queenpea]

Very nice observation! I think some players tried civ 7, decided that it's not finished or good enough yet, but also can't go back to 6. Or took the state of 7 or their dislike of it as a reason to try out similar games.

Yes thank you for the interesting post @KayAU.

Obviously a lot of people playing V and VI on day zero of VII’s launch were awaiting the game’s release and switched over as soon as it was available. Based on the public’s response, it’s safe to guess that many of these players were not satisfied with the experience.

I don’t think there is any evidence to suggest that there has been a large migration to console and that players on console have had a better experience with VII than PC players.

Remember, patches for console were delayed and pc patches were prioritized on release. Cross play was disabled for a time and console players complained about game crashes and other bugs. It is not as if the game is secretly perfect on PS5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Somehow, the emperor returned.

Old fans aren't going to accept that crap.

Generally we think alike bud, but the sequels just sucked. Didn't really like the prequels either to be honest, although they did have their moments. Rogue One, Andor, Mandolorian season 1, all awesome though.

Yep, and many of them were very experimental. Andor has the best rating among SW shows and it didn't feature a single lightsaber.

 

[user746383]

Maybe everyone who played on the first day was just so wowed by their experience they are still in recovery from just how amazing their mod-free experience was. We don’t have any evidence it isn’t true

 

[AD1730]

It depends on which part of effort you look at. For example, Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons were a big success. Similarly, prequel trilogy, which had mixed reaction originally, became classic pretty soon. On the other hand, the biggest failure of Star Wars, the sequel trilogy, failed despite aiming precisely at old fans (I could argue that aiming at old fans was even one of the reasons of the failure).

So, I don't think those things are connected.



It depends on a lot of variables, strategy is much more detailed than that. Extremely conservative strategies focused on existing customers only are short roads to death.

I don't think Firaxis made a mistake in strategy. They probably failed at execution, but not very much providing their circumstances.

Killing and destroying the characters from the originals is definitely aimed to please the old fans. /s

Also, highlighting children's shows doesn't do much to support your point.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Killing and destroying the characters from the originals is definitely aimed to please the old fans. /s

Prequels tried to reuse structure and tone from OT as much as possible (they had superweapon of the size of the moon? let's make superweapon from a planet; they blew up one planet? let's blow up all the core worlds!), unlike prequels, which were experimenting with new tones.

Also, highlighting children's shows doesn't do much to support your point.

That's exactly my point, because children's shows are aimed at different audience and differ a lot from original movies.

 

[user746383]

The main thing I remember about the prequel discussion at the time is people who grew up with the original trilogy were mad that the prequels were made for kids instead of original fans. Those kids now love it as adults too, though.

I guess you have a typo though, or are making a point I don’t quite understand, as you say the prequels were reusing the tone from the original movies unlike the prequels which were using a different tone. I’m not a Star Wars expert and I know all the movies have something about a planet destroying empire and a member of a specific family who saves the universe so unsure. They do all seem a bit samey to me.

 

[AD1730]

Yep, and many of them were very experimental. Andor has the best rating among SW shows and it didn't feature a single lightsaber.

And gets a fraction of the number of viewers of a film.

Prequels tried to reuse structure and tone from OT as much as possible (they had superweapon of the size of the moon? let's make superweapon from a planet; they blew up one planet? let's blow up all the core worlds!), unlike prequels, which were experimenting with new tones.


That's exactly my point, because children's shows are aimed at different audience and differ a lot from original movies.

No, it doesn't do much to support your point because there is such a chasm in difference between film and TV audiences that they are basically different products. The fact that it's a kids show only widens the gap. It would be like comparing a Civilization board game to Civ 7.

Most of the Disney Star Wars TV shows have done damage to the brand: Acolyte, Ahsoka, Mandalorian after season 2, and so on. Andor is a good show, the problem is that it's suffering under the weight of massive brand damage from the sequel films and consistently poor TV product. The only way Star Wars can turn around at this point is to shelve the franchise for awhile and come back with an incredible film trilogy. No TV show can save it, they simply lack the cultural reach to do so.

 

[stealth_nsk]

And gets a fraction of the number of viewers of a film.

No, it doesn't do much to support your point because there is such a chasm in difference between film and TV audiences that they are basically different products. The fact that it's a kids show only widens the gap. It would be like comparing a Civilization board game to Civ 7.

Most of the Disney Star Wars TV shows have done damage to the brand: Acolyte, Ahsoka, Mandalorian after season 2, and so on. Andor is a good show, the problem is that it's suffering under the weight of massive brand damage from the sequel films and consistently poor TV product. The only way Star Wars can turn around at this point is to shelve the franchise for awhile and come back with an incredible film trilogy. No TV show can save it, they simply lack the cultural reach to do so.

I don't see how all this relates to original points. My point was that Star Wars didn't fail because it didn't try to target old fans, quite the opposite. Projects which were aimed on old fans failed, while the most successful ones targeted other audiences. I don't see how your comment disprove this or why you continue ignoring cartoons and TV shows. The "chasm in difference between film and TV audiences" is exactly supporting my point.

 

[AD1730]

I don't see how all this relates to original points. My point was that Star Wars didn't fail because it didn't try to target old fans, quite the opposite. Projects which were aimed on old fans failed, while the most successful ones targeted other audiences. I don't see how your comment disprove this or why you continue ignoring cartoons and TV shows. The "chasm in difference between film and TV audiences" is exactly supporting my point.

No, none of this supports your point. I'll just agree to disagree with you.

 

[GeneralZift]

It's matter of personal preference. I don't know whether I like it more or less balanced, but at least I could thank this MP focus for, IMHO, the best diplomacy in Civ games. By making diplomacy MP-compatible, Firaxis also made it interesting to play in SP.

I actually disagree and I will explain why - I believe that Diplomacy is more fun Without a designated system.
In good old board games like Catan and Monopoly or in some strategy games like Age of Empires (I'm using these examples as they are predominantly Multiplayer games), the Diplomacy 'system' is simplistic to nonexistent.

However, these games thrive on a player-to-player engagement where nobody is strictly bound by any rules and so diplomacy feels more authentic.

For example, you can agree to trade unfavourably for a favour down the line. However nobody is bound to honour the agreement and so it feels more authentic.

In comes bound diplomacy rules. Here is the diplomacy money, here is how you diplomat, here is the rules, here is how everything works. Now it's less about actually working the other player and more about Working the System!!

Do I have enough favour to afford this or that? It no longer feels authentic.

 

[Chiyo]

Civ7 has now disappeared from page 5 of the steam charts and is down to the 131st most played game at the moment. It does not look like things are improving.