Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Gori the Grey]

That's true enough @uppi, though after I posted, I second-guessed my original premise (namely, as few as they can get away with, on the thinking that building civs is labor intensive). I've since come think the opposite. Go bold. By all means take advantage of existing cases that need only one civ to fill a line, but even with that, give what players will regard as a large number of three-civ-sequences, maybe so that there are, say, 16 such.

Some number of players for whom civ-switching was the major disappointment might then say, "they now let me play the way I favor, with a number of civs on a par with a typical release; this is for me a Civ game again."

Do it at price that's on the lower end to make up for overpriced early DLCs.

 

[queenpea]

Ok, statistics is one of the areas I do profesionally, especially analyzing users. One of the biggest things is that people with negative experience are way more likely to leave negative review than those who have positive experience. Having 50% positive reviews from 1% of users usually means positive experience for about 80% of the total users.

However, this depends on other factors (for example international market with cultural differences messes this a lot), so I don't give this estimation. Just pointing out that this number is not representative.

I don't think it's helpful to continue to dismiss the Steam reviews, even if it's not your intention to do so. You have pointed out repeatedly that the reviews aren't left by all owners but only those who choose to review. Yes, that is true, but so what? All of the games on Steam are reviewed by people who have purchased the game. Not every game on Steam is reviewed negatively, so I'm not sure what the larger point is that you're reaching for.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't think it's helpful to continue to dismiss the Steam reviews, even if it's not your intention to do so. You have pointed out repeatedly that the reviews aren't left by all owners but only those who choose to review. Yes, that is true, but so what? All of the games on Steam are reviewed by people who have purchased the game. Not every game on Steam is reviewed negatively, so I'm not sure what the larger point is that you're reaching for.

In the post I was replying to the percentage of reviews was used to estimate number if potential DLC buyers and it's totally wrong use of this metric. That's what I meant.

Surely reviews are different in different games. Their number depends on many things (mostly on expectations) and could affect some things (i.e. base game sales), but metrics have their meaning and limitations. You can't just base random conclusions on random metrics.

 

[Skojardu]

I am not even sure you need that many. In some cases, you just need to plug in an obvious gap. Add in Aztecs and you could go Maya -> Aztecs -> Mexico, which is at least as connected as the India civs. Or add in Byzantium and you can go 1st Rome -> 2nd Rome -> 3rd Rome

Tee hee, would that third Rome be (Imperial) Russia?

Sadly, when I list the civs out there are many orphan civs that need to jump thousands of miles to get a similar location. I am unsure how steady the game would be with only +14, although that would be elegant

 

[GeneralZift]

I think pumping out new Civs, probably with some free ones, would be a very good course of action. They'd fill more gaps and make the game look more robust very quickly.

Because on the other hand if they add very little Civs and charge a lot, people will be upset because the game isn't really robust by itself

 

[Askia Muhammad]

That's the number it shows since the release. It's likely the number was approximated from the original number of simultaneous players. It doesn't (and can't if it's really based on this data) include any sales after release. Not to mention the whole approximation is not really precise, which SteamDB states clearly with their wide margin of error.

Another thing is that we don't know size of non-Steam sales. As I wrote before, there were at least 2 hints already that for Civ7 Steam holds less than half of total sales.


It's 50% of those who left the review (something 20K+), not of those who buy the game. It's not a random sample as people need strong stimulus to leave a review (or write on forums), so it's hard to say how many people of those who bought the game actually like it. Could be anything between around 20-80%.


DLC not only sales itself, it also sales base game, especially if timed with discounts, which it usually does. Another thing is that many people already purchased this DLC as part of founder's edition.

All in all, I found the data pretty vague to estimate anything. Total Civ7 sales at the moment could be anywhere between 1-2 millions (we probably have cap at 3). With summer sale, if summer patch will be good, it could have another half a million base game sales (wild estimation with huge error margin, of course). Together with founder's edition, the DLC could have up to million units sold by the end of summer.

There’s one big problem - there’s never been more than half the number of people playing Civ 7 as there was Civ 6 on launch. The most players at one time for 7 has been 86k… you mean to tell me 1,000,000 purchased this game on steam and it never had more than 86,000 players online at once?

DLC also ALWAYS sells less than the original product and the more dlc you release you are aiming for an ever smaller market

 

[Askia Muhammad]

A really big civ pack might move the needle, one that 1) allowed players to play "the same" civilization through all three ages the way they can presently can for China and India, and 2) meant that you don't meet the same cluster of opponents all the time. That would be almost tantamount to an undo of the feature of the game to which the largest number of people seem to object.

For me, the Civ switching really doesn’t bother me.

The ridiculous leader mixing and ages are my real issues with the core systems. I think if they forced people to play appropriate leaders and added actually culture/age appropriate leaders, it would be better. For example, Harriet can lead America. Machiavelli can lead an Italian kingdom. We need a Greek leader. We need Genghis

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Ok, this answer tells me that the claim is bogus.

When one makes a historical claim, one can direct one's readers to the specific primary text that supports that claim.

If the reference to these sea charts and the death penalty connected to them appears in Pliny the Elder, just point me to the appropriate passage in Naturalis Historia and I'll go look it up myself. I read Latin.

Regarding that death penalty thing...
Do you remember what the Romans did to Pitagora's of Syracuse?
Did you know that Galileo Galilei was a Pythagorean initiated?
What they had in common?

Certain traditions hare hard to die...
A similar thing happened in China when Zhen He returned home from its world expedition...
The Forbidden City was put to the Flames, Zhu Di died shortly after, and all the reports from the
voyage's burnt down from the Mandarin Cast... the same cast that sent an ambassador to the Vatican in 1438...

A lot on Enigmas to unravel...

 

[itix]

I'm curious: how large do you estimate the current player base of civ 7 and thus the potential dlc sales? 10k? 50k? 100k? 200k? I assume there will be a sale before RtR drops as well, enlarging that player base. Playertracker estimates 115k active players currently, which is of course much less than the 1.1m for civ VI.

I assume 2 more packs before the first expansion. One around Dec/Jan, the other in april 26.

The expected attach rate is 10-33%, 20% being generally good.

As I understand it, it is calculated based on the number of copies sold. So, if Civ 7 sold 1M copies, it could be expected to sell 200k DLCs. This (obviously) demands good reception for the game.

 

[Voidwalkin]

II don't see it that way. It is corporatese for, "This game hasn't sold well, yet. But previous games in the franchise have sold well over time. We expect this one to as well." Do they actually believe that? I'm not sure. I know I don't believe it.

Yeah, I just think this one's different. The reception is different and the changes are far more alienating. The changes people want are to core game mechanics, which are unlikely to change that much at this point. I think Zelnick will be proven wrong in the long run.

I believe the legacy of Civ 7 will be either "the weird one" (at best) or "the bad one" (at worst).

Pretty much. I dunno if they can meet the sorta expectations set by past installments this go around. I doubt it.

I had previously wondered how emotionally impactful the change to civ switching would prove. I'd expected it would disrupt the emotional connection many players had to their civs.

That appears to have happened.

The pushback is emotional, and it seems players are dropping the game quicker. Something is missing; even those who don't hate switching may see the boredom sweep in faster. Beyond negativity, it may have diminished the positive emotional connection that kept the dopamine flowing.

Shoulda just ******* let players create a civ.

 

[Voidwalkin]

That's true enough @uppi, though after I posted, I second-guessed my original premise (namely, as few as they can get away with, on the thinking that building civs is labor intensive). I've since come think the opposite. Go bold. By all means take advantage of existing cases that need only one civ to fill a line, but even with that, give what players will regard as a large number of three-civ-sequences, maybe so that there are, say, 16 such.

Some number of players for whom civ-switching was the major disappointment might then say, "they now let me play the way I favor, with a number of civs on a par with a typical release; this is for me a Civ game again."

Do it at price that's on the lower end to make up for overpriced early DLCs.

It's essentially admitted civ switching failed, so I don't believe Firaxis will, but they should. It's the obvious solution.

I dunno what the internal office politics are at Firaxis, but a recognition of the reception and adaptation via de facto reinstatement of traditional civs would, imaginably, be quite courageous. It might effectively mean the devs who greenlit switching would be recognized as having blundered the franchise prestige away.

Probably alotta strong emotions and ego turmoil at the shop right about now.

 

[Siddorm]

The weird thing to me about Steam reviews is that the choices are "recommended" or "not recommended". I would only ever recommend a game to someone if it was outstanding, but everyone else seems to think that saying "not recommended" is like saying that the game is bad.

 

[Core Imposter]

If they really expect to save this iteration or perhaps make it better than minimal then they need to "own" the shortcomings. Nothing less than a marketing campaign announcing a "relaunch of Civ7" can be expected to garner enough attention to sell well enough to have the happy long-term life that other iterations have enjoyed.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

It's essentially admitted civ switching failed, so I don't believe Firaxis will, but they should. It's the obvious solution.

I dunno what the internal office politics are at Firaxis, but a recognition of the reception and adaptation via de facto reinstatement of traditional civs would, imaginably, be quite courageous. It might effectively mean the devs who greenlit switching would be recognized as having blundered the franchise prestige away.

Probably alotta strong emotions and ego turmoil at the shop right about now.

It doesn't have to be so emotional...

Without making errors you never learn...
The fact that they have "standardized" all versions for all platform is a nightmare to my perspective.
I can't even imagine what kind of feelings could be going behind the scenes...
To say... it's not just "a single error"... more like a kind of imposed destiny...
a destiny dictated from outside forces devs has no control over...

and a series of smaller events...

E.g. Sony released Stellar Blade for PC on Steam. On PS5 it has a Physical Disk. Not PC.
Why? There's a clear "destiny" for PC players that has gone completely in one and only one direction
...let say since Xbox became "mainstream"....

constant patching, intrusive DRM, a lot of things has gone unidirectional.
And that has hit PC sales significantly, players receive unfinished games at launch...
The expectations are now higher than ever...

 

[stealth_nsk]

There’s one big problem - there’s never been more than half the number of people playing Civ 7 as there was Civ 6 on launch. The most players at one time for 7 has been 86k… you mean to tell me 1,000,000 purchased this game on steam and it never had more than 86,000 players online at once?

Yes, that's usual proportion. People are spread among time zones and rarely play more than 2 hours even on release day, most of players rarely play for an hour. I'm not even sure this number takes into account early access players who didn't have rush to play the game.

DLC also ALWAYS sells less than the original product and the more dlc you release you are aiming for an ever smaller market

I never argued with this, please reread what I wrote. DLC also sales the base game as many people buy the game when DLC is out.

 

[Kev1916]

Yes, that's usual proportion. People are spread among time zones and rarely play more than 2 hours even on release day, most of players rarely play for an hour. I'm not even sure this number takes into account early access players who didn't have rush to play the game.

Maybe it's just me, our I dont pick you up correctly but a lot of the time I just think you make things up.

Who says people rarely play more than 60 mins ! , the last survey I checked stated that gamers play 28+ hours a week

" A study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) found that the average gamer spends 4 hours and 32 minutes playing video games every day. "

"the average gamer spends around 4-6 hours per day playing video games, with the global average weekly gaming time hovering around 8.45 hours. "


"About a third of the respondents said that they play five hours in a row. "

If I buy a game on release day , I'd be putting in many hours of game time, unless ofc I refunded it so yea maybe your 2 hours is right with the new civ game

 

[UWHabs]

I am not even sure you need that many. In some cases, you just need to plug in an obvious gap. Add in Aztecs and you could go Maya -> Aztecs -> Mexico, which is at least as connected as the India civs. Or add in Byzantium and you can go 1st Rome -> 2nd Rome -> 3rd Rome

Depends how many gaps you want to fill. Aztecs are an obvious one to fill in the Central America region. You need 2 civs to fill in South America (probably an indigenous civ in ancient era, and maybe Brazil for modern). You need 2 civs to fill around Indonesia. etc...

I think to really feel like there aren't too many gaps, you need enough civs so that at least in any region of the map, you're not jumping crazy distances to fit the next "regional" civ, other than some niche cases like Mississippi-Hawaii-America (although you can go Shawnee to keep the closer regional ties). To me we're not even close to "complete" until we fill in those big gaps, and that adds up when you think of all the regions.

 

[AD1730]

The weird thing to me about Steam reviews is that the choices are "recommended" or "not recommended". I would only ever recommend a game to someone if it was outstanding, but everyone else seems to think that saying "not recommended" is like saying that the game is bad.

If I was a developer/publisher I would want a number scale, as I believe it would generally raise the baseline score games get on Steam. But, as a consumer I much prefer the system as is. It is much closer to objectivity, because whoever gave the score was basing it off of a defined anchor: whether to recommend the game or not. That determination flows from many different subjective evaluations, but the end result is anchored to a definition.

When we get into review scales, it's very hard to determine what someone means by a "7/10". Heck, IGN doesn't even agree with itself on what a "7" means. Sometimes it means the game is average. Other times it means the game was good, but had values/viewpoints IGN disagrees with. Other times the game is bad, but the publisher's check cleared.

 

[Siptah]

Who says people rarely play more than 60 mins ! , the last survey I checked stated that gamers play 28+ hours a week

" A study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) found that the average gamer spends 4 hours and 32 minutes playing video games every day. "

"the average gamer spends around 4-6 hours per day playing video games, with the global average weekly gaming time hovering around 8.45 hours. "

This seemed absurdly high, so I checked. According to their official info for 2023, it's much less. And of course, this is US only. And the two most often played genres are puzzles and arcade, so it might not be very relevant to civ. Players average 12.8h combined on all devices per week according to their info (and mobile has the largest share), which means the average gamer plays less than 2 hours a day.

Source:

https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ESA_2023_Essential_Facts_FINAL_07092023-1.pdf

Maybe your study is about a different target group? E.g., people who don't have any hobbies besides gaming (and no children or offline friends)?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Opinion polls use random sampling, so they are representative. People who took effort to write reviews are far from random selection.

People who take the time to respond to opinion polls also aren't random selection, they're self-selecting for people who care enough to answer. Much like the game reviews on Steam.