Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Leucarum]

Also Civ7 could survive and stabilize at many different levels. 8-10K players have sustained plenty of games. I guess with reused or less ambitious art assets, Civ7 could end up surviving as a less popular project while Civ8 goes into the works.

 

[itix]

The counter is that while it seems to be in a slightly deeper hole than Civ6, it's not THAT much deeper. It is still plausible to turn things around. The difference to me seems to be that there is a lack of uniformity in terms of what people dislike. There isn't a clear direction which would count as "giving the players what they want."

Yeah, I noticed that in another thread. Good luck with figuring out how to improve the game.

 

[itix]

About ratings, Civ 6 opened at 83% and 9 years later, it is at 85%.

If the past performance is an indication of the future results...?

 

[tman2000]

What's baffling to me is that civfanatics has subforums for all franchise games and even some non-civilization games. If you like Civ 5 or 6 Humankind or Old World more and strongly dislike Civ 7, why even visit this subforum and thread in the first place? If all you have to say is that the game is in a bad state and will fail, why assume it's something that contributes to the discussion? Especially given the fact that it's been stated multiple times here already.

Because audience feedback and discourse affects design decision making and Civ 7 is at least still theoretically in development of some kind. People can want this game to be better and also not like the state it is in. Why do people who like the game need to be protected from negative opinions about it?

 

[IntelligentDisk]

About ratings, Civ 6 opened at 83% and 9 years later, it is at 85%.


If the past performance is an indication of the future results...?

It was at 80% after the first week, then then down to 75% after 4 weeks, then there was a 7 day period at the end of November which saw 8,084 positive reviews & 283 negative reviews - 8,367 total reviews with a 97% positive rating - which bumped the overall score to 83%. I'm not sure why, or even how, Civ VI had such an overwhelmingly good week when the 7 days after had 421 reviews at 60% positive and the 7 days prior had 612 reviews at 69% positive. Anyway, after it had 83% after 6 weeks, it steadily fell for the next 94 weeks to 66%. Then managed to start climbing again after another 50 weeks.

What is weird is that the last week of November always saw a massive influx of reviews in comparison to the week before and after which were insanely positive:

• Week of November 24th 2016 - 8,376 reviews, 97% positive
• Week of November 23rd 2017 - 1,965 reviews, 95% positive
• Week of November 20th 2018 - 3,495 reviews, 92% positive
• Week of November 19th 2019 - 1,083 reviews, 99.8% positive

These 4 weeks are 27% of all positive reviews in the first 3 years. I'm not sure why this is. A SteamDB error? Users being prompted to give reviews on Steam? Fake reviews?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

It was at 80% after the first week, then then down to 75% after 4 weeks, then there was a 7 day period at the end of November which saw 8,084 positive reviews & 283 negative reviews - 8,367 total reviews with a 97% positive rating - which bumped the overall score to 83%. I'm not sure why, or even how, Civ VI had such an overwhelmingly good week when the 7 days after had 421 reviews at 60% positive and the 7 days prior had 612 reviews at 69% positive. Anyway, after it had 83% after 6 weeks, it steadily fell for the next 94 weeks to 66%. Then managed to start climbing again after another 50 weeks.

What is weird is that the last week of November always saw a massive influx of reviews in comparison to the week before and after which were insanely positive:

• Week of November 24th 2016 - 8,376 reviews, 97% positive
• Week of November 23rd 2017 - 1,965 reviews, 95% positive
• Week of November 20th 2018 - 3,495 reviews, 92% positive
• Week of November 19th 2019 - 1,083 reviews, 99.8% positive

These 4 weeks are 27% of all positive reviews in the first 3 years. I'm not sure why this is. A SteamDB error? Users being prompted to give reviews on Steam? Fake reviews?

Thanksgiving week, probably.

 

[Xur]

What baffles me is that people cant understand that some of us has had this franchise close to us for 30 years and suddenly it's "just not for you" and you can't give criticism unless we do it in a "creative" way. We can't mention or talk about the same thing if it was mentioned once. That's kinda hard to follow when there are some people that simply refuse to understand criticism, run defence for this game 24/7 and twist reality to fit their weird narrative instead of playing their beloved game.

I have never been this defensive of a game I like, that was objectively reviewed as bad. I would simply be playing the game. I could call it what it is, but mods would go after me before them.

When criticism stalls and this discussion stalls, then it's truly over for civ7. It would mean people no longer care. That's a strange thing to wish for your beloved 47% game.

 

[Gorbles]

Criticism is useful, but it's not a prerequisite for discussion.

What baffles me is that people cant understand that some of us has had this franchise close to us for 30 years and suddenly it's "just not for you"

Nearly every game is for someone. A lot of games aren't for everyone.

Some folks stopped after Civ II, III, IV, V or VI. Some might stop after VII. Some might stop after VIII, if / when that ever happens.

It's okay for things to not be for you. If your suggestion is "make a different game", then yes, maybe VII simply isn't for you. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I understand pretty much all of the criticism posted about VII. I don't always agree with it, but I understand it. I see where a lot of it is coming from. And I do this, while posting, and playing the game. "instead" isn't relevant nor accurate. Neither is "running defense", unless you're happy with being accused of "running offense". Unhelpful labels, for anyone involved.

The game needs its own identity, and it needs to have better metrics going for it. Watering down its identity to try and inflate the metrics isn't going to work because the competition is a fleshed-out VI with years of mods and lower real-world pricing. It needs to remain as distinct to VI as VI did to V.

And I remember all the takes about cartoony graphics and how Districts were going to kill the game. It was a success. But even if it hadn't been, the answer wouldn't have been "turn it into an expansion for CiV", in my opinion.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

What baffles me is that people cant understand that some of us has had this franchise close to us for 30 years and suddenly it's "just not for you" and you can't give criticism unless we do it in a "creative" way. We can't mention or talk about the same thing if it was mentioned once. That's kinda hard to follow when there are some people that simply refuse to understand criticism, run defence for this game 24/7 and twist reality to fit their weird narrative instead of playing their beloved game.

I have never been this defensive of a game I like, that was objectively reviewed as bad. I would simply be playing the game. I could call it what it is, but mods would go after me before them.

When criticism stalls and this discussion stalls, then it's truly over for civ7. It would mean people no longer care. That's a strange thing to wish for your beloved 47% game.

No one is saying you can't criticise. This thread doesn't have much criticism about the game in it anyway, so an odd thing to say. The people who keep repeating "overall is still 47, overall is still 47, overall is still 47" need to find the courage to accept when the player count and reviews start to do better.

Isn't the goal of criticism to provide feedback in the hope of improving whatever it is your criticising? Many people would prefer Civ VIIs development gets cut short. They don't want this game to start performing better.

 

[AD1730]

If the sales and reception of this game ever turn around, I don't think we'll have to ask whether a few dozen reviews or a few hundred more/less concurrent players are enough to determine if it's happening. It will be far clearer than that.

 

[itix]

It was at 80% after the first week, then then down to 75% after 4 weeks, then there was a 7 day period at the end of November which saw 8,084 positive reviews & 283 negative reviews - 8,367 total reviews with a 97% positive rating - which bumped the overall score to 83%. I'm not sure why, or even how, Civ VI had such an overwhelmingly good week when the 7 days after had 421 reviews at 60% positive and the 7 days prior had 612 reviews at 69% positive. Anyway, after it had 83% after 6 weeks, it steadily fell for the next 94 weeks to 66%. Then managed to start climbing again after another 50 weeks.

What is weird is that the last week of November always saw a massive influx of reviews in comparison to the week before and after which were insanely positive:

• Week of November 24th 2016 - 8,376 reviews, 97% positive
• Week of November 23rd 2017 - 1,965 reviews, 95% positive
• Week of November 20th 2018 - 3,495 reviews, 92% positive
• Week of November 19th 2019 - 1,083 reviews, 99.8% positive

These 4 weeks are 27% of all positive reviews in the first 3 years. I'm not sure why this is. A SteamDB error? Users being prompted to give reviews on Steam? Fake reviews?

I can't give you an answer, but I wonder why the rest of the world can't be like the Finns and use week numbers

 

[kent77]

The reviews data for Civ 6 are kind of wild. Here are the same data in two ways:

A few observations:

1. no obvious change in trendlines in Feb 2018 (release of Rise and Fall expansion)
2. no obvious change in trendlines in Feb 2019 (release of Gathering Storm expansion)
3. big elbow in the positive trendline in Nov 2019 (just after the Platinum Edition was released and put on sale)
4. weird uptick in negative reviews in June 2025 (jumps from 45.9K to 50.6K in one month)

The odd spikes in reviews are more visible on the non-cumulative rendering of the same data, as below. This also shows the volume of monthly positive reviews goes way up from Nov 2019 and never really lets up (until maybe recently) but with no corresponding sustained increase in monthly volume of negative reviews until--oddly--April 2021, when the monthly volume at least doubles, only tapering off a few years later. What else was going on here? None of the reviews data tracks with changes in peak player data. The COVID pandemic and increased volume of players comes later than the changes. Add to this that Civ VI was in "mixed" review territory on Steam (hovering around 68%) from June 2018 through June 2019 inclusive, i.e., after two expansions, and only began its climb from "mixed" to "very positive" several months after the second expansion released, I guess I am not sure how to interpret this big picture.

Besides all this, it seems like some folks are assuming that Firaxis cares about concurrent players and average reviews. Taking those in turn:

1. As long as someone has bought the product, the idea that someone's playing it at any given moment is predictive of anything future-revenue-related seems somewhat tenuous: it's a bit of a leap to say whether I've played a game 100 hours, 10 hours, or 0 hours in the last month is predictive of whether I'll buy some future DLC. I'm sure there is a weak correlation here, but future sales is what matters. Perhaps there's an effect of marketing by exposure: if I'm playing a game a lot maybe people around me are more likely to buy it (or buy DLC), but again that probably is a weak effect. Perhaps there are other reasons I'm not thinking of for why this matters beyond anything but a very fuzzy proxy for sales data?
2. I could be persuaded that "mixed" average review scores could dissuade people from buying a game, but I'd like to see actual data on that. So many other factors seem more likely to predict people's willingness to purchase.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Thanksgiving week, probably.

I don't think so, wouldn't you then also expect a huge influx of reviews during the Christmas period? Reviews increased during the Christmas Period for Civ VI, but nowhere near the amount they increase during the end of November. A week at the end of November is seeing 10 to 30 times as many reviews as the 2 week Christmas period in 2016, 2017 & 2018 - the majority of them being overwhelmingly positive. I wonder if we will have a huge increase of positive reviews during the Thanksgiving period this November - it'll likely be on sale for 40% for the first time.

If the sales and reception of this game ever turn around, I don't think we'll have to ask whether a few dozen reviews or a few hundred more/less concurrent players are enough to determine if it's happening. It will be far clearer than that.

How about 1,000+ reviews and thousands of more players?

The reviews data for Civ 6 are kind of wild. Here are the same data in two ways:

A few observations:

1. no obvious change in trendlines in Feb 2018 (release of Rise and Fall expansion)
2. no obvious change in trendlines in Feb 2019 (release of Gathering Storm expansion)
3. big elbow in the positive trendline in Nov 2019 (just after the Platinum Edition was released and put on sale)
4. weird uptick in negative reviews in June 2025 (jumps from 45.9K to 50.6K in one month)

The odd spikes in reviews are more visible on the non-cumulative rendering of the same data, as below. This also shows the volume of monthly positive reviews goes way up from Nov 2019 and never really lets up (until maybe recently) but with no corresponding sustained increase in monthly volume of negative reviews until--oddly--April 2021, when the monthly volume at least doubles, only tapering off a few years later. What else was going on here? None of the reviews data tracks with changes in peak player data. The COVID pandemic and increased volume of players comes later than the changes. Add to this that Civ VI was in "mixed" review territory on Steam (hovering around 68%) from June 2018 through June 2019 inclusive, i.e., after two expansions, and only began its climb from "mixed" to "very positive" several months after the second expansion released, I guess I am not sure how to interpret this big picture.


Besides all this, it seems like some folks are assuming that Firaxis cares about concurrent players and average reviews. Taking those in turn:

1. As long as someone has bought the product, the idea that someone's playing it at any given moment is predictive of anything future-revenue-related seems somewhat tenuous: it's a bit of a leap to say whether I've played a game 100 hours, 10 hours, or 0 hours in the last month is predictive of whether I'll buy some future DLC. I'm sure there is a weak correlation here, but future sales is what matters. Perhaps there's an effect of marketing by exposure: if I'm playing a game a lot maybe people around me are more likely to buy it (or buy DLC), but again that probably is a weak effect. Perhaps there are other reasons I'm not thinking of for why this matters beyond anything but a very fuzzy proxy for sales data?
2. I could be persuaded that "mixed" average review scores could dissuade people from buying a game, but I'd like to see actual data on that. So many other factors seem more likely to predict people's willingness to purchase.

Both the expansions saw a big increase of reviews during the week of release which went back to normal after the first 5 to 7 days. Neither were well received in those reviews. 46% for week after Rise & Fall and 49% after Gathering Storm. In November 2019 there was an update to the Steam review system which started asking users to review games after they played them for a certain time, which explains the big increase of positive reviews starting at that point. The uptick of negative reviews in June 2025 was due to a 2K policy change which resulted in the review bombing of Civ games during that month. Even Civ V had a rating less than 50% during that month.

In response to your point 2 at the end: anecdotally, I haven't bought many games due to a not well received perception, and usually wait for a sale. Cities: Skylines II is the most obvious example for me - 2 years later now and I still haven't bought it.

 

[kent77]

Both the expansions saw a big increase of reviews during the week of release which went back to normal after the first 5 to 7 days. Neither were well received in those reviews. 46% for week after Rise & Fall and 49% after Gathering Storm. In November 2019 there was an update to the Steam review system which started asking users to review games after they played them for a certain time, which explains the big increase of positive reviews starting at that point. The uptick of negative reviews in June 2025 was due to a 2K policy change which resulted in the review bombing of Civ games during that month. Even Civ V had a rating less than 50% during that month.

That's helpful; thank you for explaining those. Any idea what happened in April 2021 to explain the sustained increase in negative reviews?

In response to your point 2 at the end: anecdotally, I haven't bought many games due to a not well received perception, and usually wait for a sale. Cities: Skylines II is the most obvious example for me - 2 years later now and I still haven't bought it.

Fair; I should have qualified this to be specific to a long-running franchise like Civ. That aside, yeah, I could see how sub-positive reviews could delay lots of purchases until a sale, and Firaxis should care about that. I still wonder what proportion of people who liked a couple of earlier iterations of a game would never buy it (versus buy it but bounce off it). Perhaps the ability to play games vicariously by watching streamers play is enough to put people off from buying even to try though.

 

[King Flevance]

More than anything, now that the DLC has been released I am looking forward to what Firaxis does as we move toward the holidays. I am highly anticipating what the next patch will be.

None of the numbers will mean much of anything if we dont see another solid patch or 2 before the end of the year. Without momentum, these are just numbers. Now, that DLC is not consuming development resources like it was and the smoke has cleared - we can see Firaxis's future direction a lot better. A new patch is about due based on their previous schedule. No roadmap has been released.

I do think that a couple solid patch updates could help a lot. Especially, if they focus on things like refining the last 2 ages, legacies, diplomacy, or religion.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

That's helpful; thank you for explaining those. Any idea what happened in April 2021 to explain the sustained increase in negative reviews?


Fair; I should have qualified this to be specific to a long-running franchise like Civ. That aside, yeah, I could see how sub-positive reviews could delay lots of purchases until a sale, and Firaxis should care about that. I still wonder what proportion of people who liked a couple of earlier iterations of a game would never buy it (versus buy it but bounce off it). Perhaps the ability to play games vicariously by watching streamers play is enough to put people off from buying even to try though.

From the Steam reviews, it looks like there was a problem with the launcher which wasn't letting people open the game.

More than anything, now that the DLC has been released I am looking forward to what Firaxis does as we move toward the holidays. I am highly anticipating what the next patch will be.

None of the numbers will mean much of anything if we dont see another solid patch or 2 before the end of the year. Without momentum, these are just numbers. Now, that DLC is not consuming development resources like it was and the smoke has cleared - we can see Firaxis's future direction a lot better. A new patch is about due based on their previous schedule. No roadmap has been released.

I do think that a couple solid patch updates could help a lot. Especially, if they focus on things like refining the last 2 ages, legacies, diplomacy, or religion.

I wouldn't be so sure that DLC won't keep consuming development resources. If Civ VII follows Civ VIs timeline, then the first expansion would be due end of May 2026, with an announcement in March 2026. That's only 7 months away. GTA VI also launches end of May 2026 which is also under the Take-Two umbrella, so maybe they will launch it at a later date than May 2026. They released 7 Civs as DLC before the first expansion in Civ VI, so far we've had 9 Civs as DLC, maybe they'll release one more pack before a major expansion, with the Ottomans, Iceland and whatever else was spotted in the game files.

Based on what they've delivered to us so far, a patch would be next Tuesday if there is one. They haven't hyped it up so far, so I imagine it will be a smaller one like 1.2.4 in August, or there just isn't one and we will go without an update for the first time in a calendar month. Whatever happens, they said there would be news later this month.

 

[sonicmyst]

266 pages in and I can still see commenters having their schadenfraude for the misfortunes of this Civ iteration.

 

[Kev1916]

As you want to use the last 30 days, how about we compare it to 30 day periods before then too?

• The last 30 days: 45% positive (1,032 reviews

We’re do you get your figures from ?

Last 30 days
RECENT: Mixed (46% of 799)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295660?snr=2_9_100000_#app_reviews_hash
Not 1032…

 

[itix]

The odd spikes in reviews are more visible on the non-cumulative rendering of the same data, as below. This also shows the volume of monthly positive reviews goes way up from Nov 2019 and never really lets up (until maybe recently) but with no corresponding sustained increase in monthly volume of negative reviews until--oddly--April 2021, when the monthly volume at least doubles, only tapering off a few years later. What else was going on here? None of the reviews data tracks with changes in peak player data. The COVID pandemic and increased volume of players comes later than the changes. Add to this that Civ VI was in "mixed" review territory on Steam (hovering around 68%) from June 2018 through June 2019 inclusive, i.e., after two expansions, and only began its climb from "mixed" to "very positive" several months after the second expansion released, I guess I am not sure how to interpret this big picture.

Steam rolled out a big update in October 2019 and as a result, the number of reviews increased drastically.

Edit: oh, @IntelligentDisk already said that.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

It's official: for the first time since launch, we have had consecutive weeks at 50% positive or above.

• Week 36: 107 positive, 106 negative, 213 total, 50.2% positive
• Week 37: 101 positive, 101 negative, 202 total, 50% positive