Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Dale]

No offense to anyone meant, but I have a strong suspicion that most people here arguing that the people needs to have some sort of relationship with their product don't understand corporate companies and how they are struggled.

Just to comment on this statement for those discussing this. From a game developer, in the game developing industry.

Most people working on a computer game, are simply people with skills the studio needs to get a job done. Most people working on a computer game, are simply doing a job to earn money to get through the week. Most people working on a computer game, in reality have no attachment to the game they are making. Specially in the AAA industry.

You could probably say that in a AAA studio, maybe 5% have an interest in the game they're working on, the other 95% are simply there doing a job with skills they have.
I would presume that with Indie studios, the percentage of people with an interest in the game is higher. I presume this on the basis that working in Indie studios is more about the passion for the games, rather than the more factory-line style of AAA game development.

 

[Dale]

What are good reasons for such a delay?

Some you may like, some you may not. But these are plausible reasons for delaying modding tools:

- Publisher mandate to reduce risk of mods conflicting with DLC plans. The "why should I buy Britain, when Britain exists as a free mod".
- They're going to implement a cross-platform compatible mod solution but need to wait for the release of Switch2 due to proprietary code.
- Existing code base is not compatible with steam workshop API.
- Waiting for the rush of patching to be completed before releasing modding tools, to reduce compatibility issues for modders.
- Development was behind schedule and they couldn't implement the solution before release date and now it's low priority on the patch list.
- Corporate decision to not support mods.
- Others

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Are you just making up %

For the second half of this post - partially - I didn’t feel like scrolling back 40 pages in the thread where some guy was arguing only a small fraction of buyers leave reviews.

For the first part, only a very small fraction of Civ players visit and use CF. We are literally the fanatics for a reason

 

[itix]

Some you may like, some you may not. But these are plausible reasons for delaying modding tools:

- Publisher mandate to reduce risk of mods conflicting with DLC plans. The "why should I buy Britain, when Britain exists as a free mod".

If an amateur coder can create a mod that hinders a DLC monetization plan, maybe there should not be a DLC.

But yeah, generally I agree, and there was a rush to get bug fixes first.

 

[Gorbles]

You could probably say that in a AAA studio, maybe 5% have an interest in the game they're working on, the other 95% are simply there doing a job with skills they have.

I think this is an unfair generalisation to anyone who cares about whatever they're building. Any kind of software team has people who are invested in the product, and people who are just clocking a 9 - 5. Guessing at the %s is always going to end up with nothing more than what you think, in the industry or not. That's something that only data at scale can answer - not individual feelings.

I've known plenty of developers invested in the game they're making, in the AA-AAA space over the years. Passion still exists. Passion explains how wages are lower compared to the same kinds of skillsets in regular software developers, because that passion (and the external glamour of "working on games, wow") is what publishers sell to make sure jobs are replaceable.

But knowing the % is a complete fool's errand.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I’ve never thought much of potatoes reviews anyway, even less so since he did 2 reviews for 7, one positive, the other negative. He was just trying to ride the fence and maximize his views.

I regularly check for new civ 7 vids.
Potato was doing great when he wasn't involved directly. He has burned, plain and simple, and needs time to recover.
Ursa gives me headaches every time I watch his content cuz he speaks too much, but has good cinematics cuts here and there and keeps me hooked.
I make some civ video from time to time but I'm terrible at editing. Some of my vids are very critical and I have no fences to guard.
Potato made two videos. One was biased, the other was critical. And got burned. I would have doubled down.

 

[bumpyglint]

This is you, again, putting forward your own conclusions.

We know there are coding mistakes (among other things). We don't know why. If you keep trying to claim you know why, then people are going to take you at your word. If you insist that you don't know why, then don't offer explanations. It's very simple.

I believe there may be some misunderstanding here, possibly due to language differences or just a miscommunication. I want to clarify that I’ve consistently said I don’t know—and honestly, I’m not focused on why the code ended up being subpar. Whether the responsibility lies with the developer, the publisher, or another factor isn’t the issue I’m raising.

My point has simply been to highlight the objective reality: the code contains numerous significant issues, even after several months, and is still missing basic features that should be relatively straightforward to implement. This discouraged many people in the fanbase that thought these problems could have been addressed in a reasonable amount of time.

I truly don’t mean to assign blame; I’m just pointing out the current state of things. I repeat, "I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE "WHY" THE CODE IS BAD, I JUST KNOW IT'S BAD"

I never said anything like this.

You literally said "I think the product wasn't ready for launch", which is the point. I repeat, "I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE "WHY" THE CODE IS BAD, I JUST KNOW IT'S BAD"
.

Games have been suffering from publisher-mandated deadlines for years. This is not me saying that all bad games are because of mandates (unreasonable) deadlines. But they certainly appear more frequently than a dev team suddenly forgetting how to write code.

Have you never worked on a team where poor management causes the product to suffer? I have!

Please stop talking about publishers like if it's something I was discussing, I DON'T CARE and I've never discussed about this; maybe it's their fault, maybe not. I repeat, "I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE "WHY" THE CODE IS BAD, I JUST KNOW IT'S BAD".

At this point you've both accused me of justifying subpar releases and blamed the programmers are Firaxis for "poor coding". This is literally, objectively, you assigning blame. Please be honest, and don't pretend that you don't care.

I get it. You think that this makes your anaylsis objective. My entire point is that a) it isn't and b) youre making unfounded assumptions.

The fact that you're having to resort to these kinds of personal slights is evidence of that. I'd appreciate it if you could maybe take a step back and stop trying to make it so personal. I disagree with your arguments. I have no idea who you are as a person.

The issues with the "poor coding" are objective and observable. I repeat, "I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE "WHY" THE CODE IS BAD, I JUST KNOW IT'S BAD"

I don’t believe I’m making unfounded assumptions saying it's bad, since I haven’t drawn any conclusions about the reasons behind the poor coding. I’ve simply pointed out that the code itself has serious flaws, and that’s the only point I’ve been focusing on.

Also, just to clarify—when I said, “As for the developer or publisher, I’ve said this before: I don’t know and I don’t care who’s responsible,” it wasn’t meant as a personal slight. It was simply an attempt to stay neutral and avoid assigning blame, since I truly don’t know who is responsible and I’m not interested in speculating.

There are no observable facts when it comes to the reasons why a product ended up as it did. You keep saying you don't care, but you also keep giving the reasons you think are relevant. That's called trying to have it both ways, I'm afraid.

Sorry but where am I saying "why" the code is so bad? I really don't understand where I would have said the reason for this. I said the code is bad, that many simple features are poorly executed, that there's lack of politeness/ careness and so on. Saying stuff like "it seems coded by an intern alone" was obviously an ironic metaphor, obviously I wasn't saying that's literally "why" the code is bad (as I've explained before, it seemed obvious to me that it was irony)

A car without brakes is a safety violation and would not be allowed on the road. For all its faults on release, Civ VII was objectively not that. Maybe subjectively you feel this to be the case. Your opinion is valid for you.

The legal difference was not the main point of the metaphor

You do not know how complex auto-explore is. You keep insisting that it's simple, but the objective reality is that you have no idea. How could you?

I know because everyone with basic code skills could create an algorithm for that, and that's also why they already did it in all previous games

I haven't twisted anything into anything. If you're going to make claims, evidence them. Don't talk about being "clear" while throwing accusations around, please. As apparently you don't want a PM.


My assumption is that the negative reaction to the game at launch necessitated a change in post-release direction that slowed down the release of what they were planning in favour of things the community prioritised. My evidence for this is how they released a roadmap based directly on community criticism and the fact that the second DLC was pushed back.

I still think that the current lack of patching momentum is an issue. Even an updated / more targeted roadmap would be appreciated by the community imo.

I've already given claims and evidence about the quality of the code, but I can give more if you want.

I've not given claims or evidence about "why" it's bad, because, I repeat, "I DON'T KNOW AND DON'T CARE "WHY" THE CODE IS BAD, I JUST KNOW IT'S BAD".

Sorry about the "PM" stuff, I don't understand what you mean, a PM for what?

Sorry if maybe this messages feel personals, obviously they are not personal attacks against you (I don't know you and probably you are good boy), the point is that every single message I wrote seems to be completetly distorted when you answer me

 

[Gorbles]

You literally said "I think the product wasn't ready for launch", which is the point.

That doesn't mean I wasn't arguing about nothing. The fact we agree that the product wasn't ready for launch was never the argument!

The legal difference was not the main point of the metaphor

Sure it is. Auto-explore is not as critical for a 4x game, even a Civ. game, compared to brakes on a car. Such a game can be sold and played. Such a car cannot. It's not like-for-like at all.

Sorry but where am I saying "why" the code is so bad?

"poor coding" != "poor code". Like you said, maybe an issue in communication. The state of the code is what it is. The reason for that doesn't have to be poor coding. Coding is the activity, code is the result.

Does that help clear up any potential misunderstanding?

I know because everyone with basic code skills could create an algorithm for that, and that's also why they already did it in all previous games

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. I don't think anyone could. I think that it requires product design and implementation by developers, and not just an off the cuff "algorithm". And I think the developers having said they have to consider more than they did in the past, makes it more complicated.

But if you can knock out an algorithm that solves everything in 5 minutes, then go and do that? Genuinely? Not intending to put you on the spot but if it's that easy, I write more pseudocode on a daily basis than you're suggesting it's going to need when talking to customers alone. You seem to be insisting it's incredibly easy.

Sorry about the "PM" stuff, I don't understand what you mean, a PM for what?

A Private / Personal Message (sometimes called Direct Message). To continue the tangent so we're not both omnislashing each other's replies all over the thread. I offered it earlier, but you wanted to apparently say that I was defending a subpar release instead

 

[stealth_nsk]

Most people working on a computer game, are simply people with skills the studio needs to get a job done. Most people working on a computer game, are simply doing a job to earn money to get through the week. Most people working on a computer game, in reality have no attachment to the game they are making. Specially in the AAA industry.

You don't need to be target audience for the product you're making, but you still need to be deep into it. You want to make something to be proud of and to look good in your CV, so I'd say there's usually some kind of attachments, just not the same kind as players have.

Some you may like, some you may not. But these are plausible reasons for delaying modding tools:

- Publisher mandate to reduce risk of mods conflicting with DLC plans. The "why should I buy Britain, when Britain exists as a free mod".

I don't think it's the case. Modders are good with altering gameplay and UI, but graphics and sounds are not something you usually meet in mods with the same quality as base game.

- They're going to implement a cross-platform compatible mod solution but need to wait for the release of Switch2 due to proprietary code.

It's impossible to implement cross-platform modding tools if they are as deep as in Civ5 (DLL). Binary code is incompatible and native libraries use different formats.
If cross-platform modding tools will come out, they'll have roughly the same modding capabilities as current mods, just with some fancy wrapper.

- Existing code base is not compatible with steam workshop API.
- Waiting for the rush of patching to be completed before releasing modding tools, to reduce compatibility issues for modders.
- Development was behind schedule and they couldn't implement the solution before release date and now it's low priority on the patch list.
- Corporate decision to not support mods.
- Others

I think reasons are more simple:
1. It's the question of priorities. Modding tools are done by the same software developers and Firaxis prefers them to work on game fixes/improvements.
2. Modding tools not only require developer work, they require constant support, updating with every patch, which will also take away developer resources.

Overall I totally understand delaying modding tools until more actual issues are settled.

 

[Kev1916]

Some you may like, some you may not. But these are plausible reasons for delaying modding tools:

- Publisher mandate to reduce risk of mods conflicting with DLC plans. The "why should I buy Britain, when Britain exists as a free mod".
- They're going to implement a cross-platform compatible mod solution but need to wait for the release of Switch2 due to proprietary code.
- Existing code base is not compatible with steam workshop API.
- Waiting for the rush of patching to be completed before releasing modding tools, to reduce compatibility issues for modders.
- Development was behind schedule and they couldn't implement the solution before release date and now it's low priority on the patch list.
- Corporate decision to not support mods.
- Others

Yep , add in a day one DLC with withheld content , there will be no mods coming anytime soon, best guess end of this year

 

[UWHabs]

That doesn't mean I wasn't arguing about nothing. The fact we agree that the product wasn't ready for launch was never the argument!

Sure it is. Auto-explore is not as critical for a 4x game, even a Civ. game, compared to brakes on a car. Such a game can be sold and played. Such a car cannot. It's not like-for-like at all.

"poor coding" != "poor code". Like you said, maybe an issue in communication. The state of the code is what it is. The reason for that doesn't have to be poor coding. Coding is the activity, code is the result.

Does that help clear up any potential misunderstanding?

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. I don't think anyone could. I think that it requires product design and implementation by developers, and not just an off the cuff "algorithm". And I think the developers having said they have to consider more than they did in the past, makes it more complicated.

But if you can knock out an algorithm that solves everything in 5 minutes, then go and do that? Genuinely? Not intending to put you on the spot but if it's that easy, I write more pseudocode on a daily basis than you're suggesting it's going to need when talking to customers alone. You seem to be insisting it's incredibly easy.

A Private / Personal Message (sometimes called Direct Message). To continue the tangent so we're not both omnislashing each other's replies all over the thread. I offered it earlier, but you wanted to apparently say that I was defending a subpar release instead

Yeah, not launching with auto-explore is like releasing a car without the sticker to tell you how hot or old the AC is set to. It's nice to have that, so you don't have to trust the exact dial position to tell you, but honestly it's the least of the issues. I mean, as many people complained about not having auto-explore at launch also laughed a bit when that was the focus of the first dev discord discussion.
I mean, sure, you could knock out a bad algorithm for it pretty quickly. The only part of the whole fact that it's not there and discussion that I could argue is bad is that I would have assumed the AI scouts should have a relatively sensible exploration algorithm of their own, so to me it feels like the human algorithm should just steal that. Maybe the logic isn't easily shared, ok. Secretly it's probably an excuse to get people to share their own thinking, so that the devs can go back and update the AI algorithm at the same time.

For me, the fact that renaming items wasn't in at launch is a bigger missing piece. Even if neither of them are really features that I really personally care about, especially given that they had to have known that age changing would feel weird to some people, "at least worst case let people rename their cities" to me always felt like such a natural "workaround" for people who had some issues there, that that felt like a real miss not having it in.

 

[Solver]

Some you may like, some you may not. But these are plausible reasons for delaying modding tools:

- Publisher mandate to reduce risk of mods conflicting with DLC plans. The "why should I buy Britain, when Britain exists as a free mod".
- They're going to implement a cross-platform compatible mod solution but need to wait for the release of Switch2 due to proprietary code.
- Existing code base is not compatible with steam workshop API.
- Waiting for the rush of patching to be completed before releasing modding tools, to reduce compatibility issues for modders.
- Development was behind schedule and they couldn't implement the solution before release date and now it's low priority on the patch list.
- Corporate decision to not support mods.
- Others

You forgot my favorite: localization. Modding support is implemented, working and ready to go, but the "Your mods have been updated" and "Failed to upload mod: file size too large" strings need translation into every language the game supports so the feature can only be released after the next text freeze-translation-merge cycle.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The reason for that doesn't have to be poor coding. Coding is the activity, code is the result.

How can poor code come about by any other means than poor coding?

 

[Gorbles]

How can poor code come about by any other means than poor coding?

Bad management, rushed deadlines, insufficient redundancy to handle things like illness (though this can also be thrown under "bad management", I like to separate it out because dev team management and hiring resource are vastly different departments). That's just a few off of the top of my head while I wait for a build to complete.

There are many, many reasons why code ends up bad. There is even plenty of software (including this forum we all type on) that works well (or well enough), but will absolutely have a significant portion of "bad code" in parts of its codebase.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, I see. You don't want to impugn the abilities of the programmers (naturally), but if a programmer writes code that he himself knows is sub-standard in order to meet an unrealistic deadline that has been set for him, I would call that both bad code and bad coding. He's not at fault for the bad coding, but it is (even in his own estimation) bad coding, i.e. not the work he would do under a reasonable deadline.

Can we consider the one example that bumpyglint gave:

For example, one of the worst offenders is the Age system (from a programming standpoint, not gameplay); it’s been implemented so poorly that fixing it entirely is close to impossible, everything that’s supposed to be a one-time bonus gets reapplied whenever a new Age begins, because the game essentially resets and reactivates all effects. So when a new Age start you end up with things like:
- Every settlement gaining an extra +1 population again if you have the expansionist attribute
- Isabella granting gold again for every natural wonder
- The Terracotta Army giving you another free commander

and many more. Literally every "una tantum" effect in the game is bugged because of this.

If Isabella is supposed, as a one-time matter, to get gold for every natural wonder, but the coding is such that she gets that not just in antiquity, but at the shift from antiquity to exploration and again at the shift from exploration to modern, wouldn't that represent a poor way to code that game effect? i.e. poor code. And however it came about, poor coding.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Oh, I see. You don't want to impugn the abilities of the programmers (naturally), but if a programmer writes code that he himself knows is sub-standard in order to meet an unrealistic deadline that has been set for him, I would call that both bad code and bad coding. He's not at fault for the bad coding, but it is (even in his own estimation) bad coding, i.e. not the work he would do under a reasonable deadline.

Can we consider the one example that bumpyglint gave:


If Isabella is supposed, as a one-time matter, to get gold for every natural wonder, but the coding is such that she gets that not just in antiquity, but at the shift from antiquity to exploration and again at the shift from exploration to modern, wouldn't that represent a poor way to code that game effect?

It's not a bad coding, I'd say it's more about poor management due to time constraints.

As I see it, the code for age change came long before Isabella ability was defined. Age change was presented in the original Firaxis presentation to 2K and it started from maximum reset, later adding things to keep. So, it totally made sense at the time to reset the game completely. Technically each age is a new game, which even have limited map generation iteration to assign resources.

So, with this, coding Isabella properly requires a lot of work - it would require additional information saved between ages (to store info on which natural wonders were triggered already), and additional logic to process this information. And here, probably comes the usual part. Game designer just haven't thought about it, they described the ability as something like "Get X gold first time discovering natural wonder" and left it as is. Developers implemented the requirements as they see it and passed further. Testers very likely found the issue, but didn't mark the issue as blocker, because the game is still playable and this issue affects only one leader...

If the game wouldn't have bigger problems, that would probably be fixed by now.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ok, but poor coding management (as opposed to the poor business management that set an unreasonable time-frame).

If at some point you settle on ages as the "deepest" element of your game design, then you need to have somebody in place, some lead programmer, to play out the possible consequences of that, and then track "shallower" elements as they are added, and bring them into proper conformity with that deeper structure.

And if someone doesn't do that, or doesn't do that well, then isn't it fair to call the game poorly coded?

And yes, I have heard elsewhere what @Gorbles said: that most programs have "bad code" in them if viewed from the perspective of "how would we do this if we were starting the whole project from scratch?" It's cost-prohibitive to redo all programs just to get pristine code, so programmers are constantly having to work around the previous workarounds.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Ok, but poor coding management (as opposed to the poor business management that set an unreasonable time-frame).

I wouldn't say that. From outside it looks like normal coding management, just time constraints. If you objectively weight this bug, it really has lower priority than most of the features released in the patches.

If at some point you settle on ages as the "deepest" element of your game design, then you need to have somebody in place, some lead programmer, to play out the possible consequences of that, and then track "shallower" elements as they are added, and bring them into proper conformity with that deeper structure.

It's not a programmer work, it's combined effort. Programmers could tell how difficult is making this or that and adapt architecture to requirements. Game designers suppose what has to be done and managers set constraints. The problem is that game design is always iterative, and by the time you come to specific abilities, core architecture is usually set long before.

Of course, in the perfect world, once game designer comes to some feature, which is really hard to implement properly, managers should step in and advice to alter the feature, but it requires a lot of communication and in reality it fails too often. So yep, it's a management problem, not coding.

 

[Gori the Grey]

What would be the title, and placement in the organizational hierarchy, of the person who should (in an ideal world) have prevented this?

Would that person have come up through the ranks of programmers? (but then reached that position because of his or her ability to communicate effectively with non-programmers)

 

[stealth_nsk]

What would be the title, and placement in the organizational hierarchy, of the person who should have prevented this?

Would that person have come up through the ranks of programmers? (but then reached that position because of his or her ability to communicate effectively with non-programmers)

It depends on the process. If there's a project manager, it's likely within their responsibility. Otherwise it's producer (for game development) or product manager (more broad term).