Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[GeneralZift]

Comparing Civ7 with Humankind there is deceptive. Development and marketing costs were very different.

Yes I mean Civ has the added benefit of existing loyal player base too. I recall HK had a huge budget, produced by SEGA*, there was all this marketing material, man I thought it was going to be amazing

Fyi, outside of the gameplay, HK is really really impressive. In terms of visuals and music, I'd go far to say it rivals Civ. I enjoyed the Government system too. Sucks it had some difficulties in the end. But yes, it also shows that while some releases you can come back from, some like HK, don't really make any comebacks.

Does anyone know if we will be seeing Humankind 2?

EDIT: Typo, meant to write Sega instead of Sony

 

[Zaarin]

Does anyone know if we will be seeing Humankind 2?

I doubt it. Humankind was clearly pushed on Amplitude by SEGA, who wanted a Civ competitor, and Amplitude has parted ways with SEGA and now publishes with Hooded Horse (same publisher as Old World). Their intention seems to be to return to focusing on their Endless games, and in the stream where they announced Endless Legend 2 they came as close to disowning Humankind as it was politick to do. (I was not a fan of the first Endless Legend or of Humankind so I only have half an eye on EL2, but Endless Space 2 is one of my all-time favorite 4X games. You can bet I'll be all for it when they get around to Endless Space 3 in a few years.)

 

[Leucarum]

I just find myself turned off by the combat system in amplitude 4X games. Never been able to enjoy it, so unless that dramatically changes I don't see myself getting excited by their releases...

 

[KayAU]

I doubt it. Humankind was clearly pushed on Amplitude by SEGA, who wanted a Civ competitor, and Amplitude has parted ways with SEGA and now publishes with Hooded Horse (same publisher as Old World). Their intention seems to be to return to focusing on their Endless games, and in the stream where they announced Endless Legend 2 they came as close to disowning Humankind as it was politick to do. (I was not a fan of the first Endless Legend or of Humankind so I only have half an eye on EL2, but Endless Space 2 is one of my all-time favorite 4X games. You can bet I'll be all for it when they get around to Endless Space 3 in a few years.)

I'm in a similar place when it comes to Amplitude. I really tried to like Endless Legend, but it just didn't click. I think there were a few reasons, including the odd combat system, and the way regions turned the map into a set of "gigatiles". I know it's a good game, but I couldn't get into it. I liked Humankind more, but it too didn't quite pull me in. It's a game I occasionally return to.

Endless Legend 2 does look interesting though. For one thing, it seems like tactical combat is more direct. I generally like this kind of combat system when it is done well, like in Fallen Enchantress or Age of Wonders. I am also intrigued by the system which will start everyone on their own, but gradually open up more of the map and connect players as the sea level drops. I don't know if I would end up liking it or whether it would end up feeling too contrived, but the idea is interesting.

 

[GeneralZift]

I doubt it. Humankind was clearly pushed on Amplitude by SEGA, who wanted a Civ competitor, and Amplitude has parted ways with SEGA and now publishes with Hooded Horse (same publisher as Old World). Their intention seems to be to return to focusing on their Endless games, and in the stream where they announced Endless Legend 2 they came as close to disowning Humankind as it was politick to do. (I was not a fan of the first Endless Legend or of Humankind so I only have half an eye on EL2, but Endless Space 2 is one of my all-time favorite 4X games. You can bet I'll be all for it when they get around to Endless Space 3 in a few years.)

Aha that sucks because they really weren't far off a great game. I didn't like the combat or the Civ switching but the other stuff was decent.

I checked yesterday, and they're actually still updating Humankind which is surprising. Apparently they made a fundamental change to the War Support system to be less like War HP and more like War Stamina. Which is how it should've been from the start.

 

[Stoic]

Is it normal that there are now more Civ V and Vi players on Steam than Civ VII?

 

[Siptah]

Is it normal that there are now more Civ V and Vi players on Steam than Civ VII?

Normal? Hard to say.

Unexpected? Not really, but I’m sure others see this different.

 

[Nikolai II]

Is it normal that there are now more Civ V and Vi players on Steam than Civ VII?

Follows the trajectory of 5 and 6 back in the days. Also remember Civ7 is available several places, not just on Steam, contrary to Civ6 at the time of release.

 

[trev1972]

Is it normal that there are now more Civ V and Vi players on Steam than Civ VII?

I think it is perfectly normal to still be behind Civ 6 in numbers. I wouldn't say it is normal or a good sign to still be below civ 5 and to see no significant bump in numbers after the latest patches.
New features in new civ iterations always cause some initial backlash and new releases are often half cooked.

It is my personal opinion however that a significant number of players feel core changes made in civ 7 attack the essence of what makes a civ game, so i think this is an unusually divisive release.

 

[UWHabs]

Normal? Hard to say.

Unexpected? Not really, but I’m sure others see this different.

Other than the spikes around launch/patches/DLC, it took civ 6 2 years to fully overtake civ 5 and stay there (and then Covid spiked civ 5 that it almost overtook civ 6 temporarily again). 7 seems to have launched lower than 6 (6 started with like 160k Peak at launch, 7 was 85k). So there's a gap to overcome. And the numbers have trailed off faster than they did in 6 - from the Steam graphs, it seems like a good 6-10 months before civ 6 basically bottomed out from the launch hype, whereas 7 has only been out 3 months and it's already lower relatively. We really don't know what the civ 4 numbers are like, since that was mostly pre-Steam, so we don't have as good comparisons. But given how popular 4 was, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they kept a strong enough player base to stay at or above the civ 6 numbers until those expansions to 6 came in.

With civ 6, even with Rise+Fall, that spiked things a little, and they went right back to where it was before a few months after. Gathering Storm did seem to lead to some sustained retention. And then 6 also did a better job at keeping post-Covid numbers steady, whereas 5 only really seemed to spike during the peak of lockdowns, and then dropped back off afterwards. I'm sure the fact that 6 was putting out regular content then kept players more engaged.

 

[Siptah]

Other than the spikes around launch/patches/DLC, it took civ 6 2 years to fully overtake civ 5 and stay there (and then Covid spiked civ 5 that it almost overtook civ 6 temporarily again). 7 seems to have launched lower than 6 (6 started with like 160k Peak at launch, 7 was 85k). So there's a gap to overcome. And the numbers have trailed off faster than they did in 6 - from the Steam graphs, it seems like a good 6-10 months before civ 6 basically bottomed out from the launch hype, whereas 7 has only been out 3 months and it's already lower relatively. We really don't know what the civ 4 numbers are like, since that was mostly pre-Steam, so we don't have as good comparisons. But given how popular 4 was, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they kept a strong enough player base to stay at or above the civ 6 numbers until those expansions to 6 came in.

With civ 6, even with Rise+Fall, that spiked things a little, and they went right back to where it was before a few months after. Gathering Storm did seem to lead to some sustained retention. And then 6 also did a better job at keeping post-Covid numbers steady, whereas 5 only really seemed to spike during the peak of lockdowns, and then dropped back off afterwards. I'm sure the fact that 6 was putting out regular content then kept players more engaged.

The funny thing by now is the average playtime on Steam (interpretation up to the reader, of course):

Civ IV BtS (flawed numbers): 351h
Civ V: 401h
Civ VI: 115h
Civ VII: 61h
---
Beyond Earth: 150h
Humankind: 55h
Ara: 39h
Millennia: 50h
Ozymandias: 40h
Endless Legend: 58h
Stellaris: 168h
EU4: 134h

 

[Kev1916]

Follows the trajectory of 5 and 6 back in the days. Also remember Civ7 is available several places, not just on Steam, contrary to Civ6 at the time of release.

Not sure that statement can be true, really ?, you believe more players were playing civ 4 and 3 than Civ 5 ? and likewise more playing 4/5 than 6 and can even be checked .

 

[GeneralZift]

The funny thing by now is the average playtime on Steam (interpretation up to the reader, of course):

Civ IV BtS (flawed numbers): 351h
Civ V: 401h
Civ VI: 115h
Civ VII: 61h
---
Beyond Earth: 150h
Humankind: 55h
Ara: 39h
Millennia: 50h
Ozymandias: 40h
Endless Legend: 58h
Stellaris: 168h
EU4: 134h

These numbers show Civ5 is the best of course ehm I shall take my leave knowing that I am never wrong

 

[Kev1916]

Aha that sucks because they really weren't far off a great game. I didn't like the combat or the Civ switching but the other stuff was decent.

I checked yesterday, and they're actually still updating Humankind which is surprising. Apparently they made a fundamental change to the War Support system to be less like War HP and more like War Stamina. Which is how it should've been from the start.

Aye , whats more the recent views have pushed pasted 80% , seems like a game to perhaps re-try or pick up in a sale

 

[KayAU]

Is it normal that there are now more Civ V and Vi players on Steam than Civ VII?

I touched upon this in this post, where I compared the numbers to Civ 6's launch.

I would say that it's normal that Civ 7 is behind Civ 6. It's more concerning that it is behind Civ 5, and that the overall player numbers are significantly lower. After Civ 6 launched, it took a while before it overtook Civ 5's player count, but the difference was not huge (60% playing Civ 5, 40% playing Civ 6), and overall there were more people people playing Civ than before launch.

Right now, there are fewer people playing either Civ 5, 6 or 7, than there were people playing Civ 5 before the launch of 6.

 

[Nikolai II]

Not sure that statement can be true, really ?, you believe more players were playing civ 4 and 3 than Civ 5 ? and likewise more playing 4/5 than 6 and can even be checked .

No, the trajectory of the games. Both Civ5 and 6 started high, fell a lot, increased with each patch and DLC and fell again. 4 was before Steam. But 6 was below 5 for a long time. 7 started lower than 6, but the trajectory has been pretty similar from what I understand. 7 is not exclusively Steam like 6 was, though.

 

[KayAU]

To add some detail, Civ 5's current number of players is the lowest point it has been for as far back as its Steam Charts history goes, which is August 2012. The game was released in autum 2010, and is closing in on 15 years old. The fact that it still regularly draws 15-20k players, is very impressive.
Civ 6's lowest point came about a year after launch. It then had about 25k players. From that point its popularity increased gradually, and in the period before Civ 7 released, it had about 70-80k players. The number has decreased significantly after the launch of Civ 7, but that is not unusual. Civ 5's number also decreased after the launch of 6. What's different is that the combined number of players for all Civ games has decreased significantly.

As ridiculous as it would be, unless Firaxis and Take Two can turn things around, I would not be completely shocked if Civ 5 again became the most popular "current" Civ game at some point in the future. I'm not saying it's the most likely outcome, and it certainly isn't the outcome I would want, but at this point, it looks possible.

 

[Kev1916]

No, the trajectory of the games. Both Civ5 and 6 started high, fell a lot, increased with each patch and DLC and fell again. 4 was before Steam. But 6 was below 5 for a long time. 7 started lower than 6, but the trajectory has been pretty similar from what I understand. 7 is not exclusively Steam like 6 was, though.

K see post above yours , the issue is , it can’t be in any shape or form positive news that your new game is being played by less than % 20 of daily players of the two older versions .

That’s like terrible numbers

 

[Siptah]

To add some detail, Civ 5's current number of players is the lowest point it has been for as far back as its Steam Charts history goes, which is August 2012. The game was released in autum 2010, and is closing in on 15 years old. The fact that it still regularly draws 15-20k players, is very impressive.
Civ 6's lowest point came about a year after launch. It then had about 25k players. From that point its popularity increased gradually, and in the period before Civ 7 released, it had about 70-80k players. The number has decreased significantly after the launch of Civ 7, but that is not unusual. Civ 5's number also decreased after the launch of 6. What's different is that the combined number of players for all Civ games has decreased significantly.

The number of total civ players may be lower because there are many other good 4x games available these days, and historical GSGs are also more popular than 10 years ago (in my personal impression, I didn't look at actual data). So, the historical 4x players are distributed onto more games. On the other hand, these kinds of game seem a bit out of date with the modern fast moving world, in which sitting down for a few hours to play a game seems rarer for many people compared to 20 years ago. Again, my subjective impression.

[A minor correction: the all time low for the 24h peak of civ VI was 11k players at March 22, 2017. This was an outlier, but daily peaks below 20k were pretty common around that time. It doesn't change your overall argument though.]

 

[misesfan]

The number of total civ players may be lower because there are many other good 4x games available these days, and historical GSGs are also more popular than 10 years ago (in my personal impression, I didn't look at actual data). So, the historical 4x players are distributed onto more games. On the other hand, these kinds of game seem a bit out of date with the modern fast moving world, in which sitting down for a few hours to play a game seems rarer for many people compared to 20 years ago. Again, my subjective impression.

[A minor correction: the all time low for the 24h peak of civ VI was 11k players at March 22, 2017. This was an outlier, but daily peaks below 20k were pretty common around that time. It doesn't change your overall argument though.]

Why would they charge a premium triple-A price for a product with a lower customer base? I think Firaxis thought that those who played Civ in the past would migrate seamlessly over to 7 and pay that premium and then some.