Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[TylertheDestroyer]

Virtually everybody wants them to go back to Civ 4 and start from there but for some reason they kept messing up. I said when I first heard of 1UPT that it would destroy the franchise and now we are at the brink.

No they don't, again there's a reason why V and VI are by far the most popular and succesful entries in the series. The majority of CIvilization fans prefer 1UPT/tactical combat (or something in between) to stacks of doom and this fact can be confirmed by poll after poll after poll here over the last decade or two.

We're never going back, the best you're going to get is a compromise like we see in VII with limited stacking. Personally there are mechanics I'd like to see return from IV but this idea that everybody wants stacks of doom back, the franchise has been DeStRoYed because 1UPT, and that virtually everyone wants to go back to IV is just not reality.

 

[itix]

I quote Reddit poster, who is quoting another Redditor. I dont find it convincing but it is good to look up when there is the next 2K earnings call.

Spoiler Stupid rumors :

According to this reddit poster, Training-Seat-8128, the game's future has been planned and there is not much more coming. Poster says they know someone in 2k who told them this.

• The Civilization franchise is purported to be no longer viable/profitable by 2K and will be brought to an end. The consistent low player count is also a factor in 2K's decision to pull the plug.
• Civ7 is significantly underperforming compared with 2K's other games, and does not bring in enough money.
• Strategy games are not good vehicles for micro-transactional content which is another factor that 2K is considering regarding 2K's future.
• There may be one significant DLC expansion for Civ7 before support for the game is ended.
• A significant amount of planned DLC content has been scrapped (leaders, civs, pirates, crusaders with a new religion system). The religion system may be released with the DLC expansion.
• A consultancy firm has advised 2K to sell the Civ franchise but there are no buyers because of the high price of doing so.

If this person is to be believed (and that's a big if), there will likely be no classic Civ mode, just a push to make them game as profitable as possible until the plug is pulled.

I dont believe this and neither should you. The post is plausible only in the context of what 2K is and what it is not, but that is it.

 

[AD1730]

I quote Reddit poster, who is quoting another Redditor. I dont find it convincing but it is good to look up when there is the next 2K earnings call.



I dont believe this and neither should you. The post is plausible only in the context of what 2K is and what it is not, but that is it.

If true, it shows that corporate execs rarely fail to come to the wrong conclusions. What they should conclude is that Firaxis needs housecleaning and a change in direction.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Strategy games are not good vehicles for micro-transactional content which is another factor that 2K is considering regarding 2K's future.

This cannot be more false, Civ6 and Paradox games has proven that way back. All fantasy. (someone is yet again in need of speculation)

 

[bumpyglint]

I quote Reddit poster, who is quoting another Redditor. I dont find it convincing but it is good to look up when there is the next 2K earnings call.



I dont believe this and neither should you. The post is plausible only in the context of what 2K is and what it is not, but that is it.

It's actually really similar to what I expected would be happened as I wrote in this forum months ago, I don't know if the source is reliable but I feel like what it's saying is unfortunately reasonable

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I quote Reddit poster, who is quoting another Redditor. I dont find it convincing but it is good to look up when there is the next 2K earnings call.



I dont believe this and neither should you. The post is plausible only in the context of what 2K is and what it is not, but that is it.

None of this would be discussed on an earnings call. The only things raised on calls are good news and material risks. Civ 7 is not material enough to 2K to warrant discussing, even if any of the above is true.

If Civ 7 is selling well, from 2K's perspective, that will be highlighted along with upcoming plans to build on the success. If it isn't, we'll get a simple statement about the # of units sold in the Civ franchise and a comment about it being early in the life cycle of Civ 7.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

It's actually really similar to what I expected would be happened as I wrote in this forum months ago, I don't know if the source is reliable but I feel like what it's saying is unfortunately reasonable

I wouldn't put much stock in a reddit equivalent of a "my uncle works at Nintendo" post but what was said sounds reasonable because we could all imagine that the dumb execs at 2K would come to this exact conclusion witnessing the flop that is Civ VII.

 

[bumpyglint]

I wouldn't put much stock in a reddit equivalent of a "my uncle works at Nintendo" post but what was said sounds reasonable because we could all imagine that the dumb execs at 2K would come to this exact conclusion witnessing the flop that is Civ VII.

Yeah that's basically my point, don't know if it's true but definitely is in line what I would expect from 2k.

 

[0urBall]

• Strategy games are not good vehicles for micro-transactional content which is another factor that 2K is considering regarding 2K's future.

This might, sadly, be the most relevant point out of that whole quote. Which means Firaxis may have been fighting an uphill battle for a long time with 2K. And may also explain the rushed launch/DLC model/high launch price that took place when the game was released

 

[Bug Repellent]

I would not be surprised if Firaxis is fighting for survival at the moment, if the sales numbers from Gamalytic and its nearly 200 or so headcount from Wikipedia are to be believed. They have Civ, XCOM (9 yrs old) and the more or less dead Midnight Suns. There's no way this company is in the black currently.

 

[itix]

This cannot be more false, Civ6 and Paradox games has proven that way back. All fantasy. (someone is yet again in need of speculation)

If you compare Civ 6 vs Civ 7 credits, it seems that they ballooned the development budget for the latter. Civ 6 had a total of 800 people while Civ 7 had a massive 2600 people working on it. Many of them are subcontractors and one time artists (musicians etc) but comparison holds. Why so big team if they didnt believe on it?

I even considered the possibility they cut the dev budget and had to fire half of their programmers, but I couldn't find evidence of that.

 

[itix]

None of this would be discussed on an earnings call. The only things raised on calls are good news and material risks. Civ 7 is not material enough to 2K to warrant discussing, even if any of the above is true.

If Civ 7 is selling well, from 2K's perspective, that will be highlighted along with upcoming plans to build on the success. If it isn't, we'll get a simple statement about the # of units sold in the Civ franchise and a comment about it being early in the life cycle of Civ 7.

Divesting Civ franchise is certainly relevant to investors. They wouldnt tell if they were cancelling the series, but the absence of information is information on its own. The next one will be held on 7th August.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Divesting Civ franchise is certainly relevant to investors. They wouldnt tell if they were cancelling the series, but the absence of information is information on its own. The next one will be held on 7th August.

They wouldn't disclose they were divesting until they had a signed deal to sell it. They wouldn't disclose that they were thinking of selling it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I quote Reddit poster, who is quoting another Redditor. I dont find it convincing but it is good to look up when there is the next 2K earnings call.

I dont believe this and neither should you. The post is plausible only in the context of what 2K is and what it is not, but that is it.

There are some suspicious things here:
1. Based on what we seen and heard, the 4th age expansion was planned and nearly confirmed by Ed around the release. Plans could change, based on player reaction, but I really doubt they changed before.
2. Companies don't hire top actors for a game they want to save money on. They don't hire those actors again to record additional lines months after release. Civ7 has all the polish of AAA game.
3. Declining expansions is rarely a good business decision. They have much better ratio between production cost and income, so they almost always pay for themselves and more. As we've seen, based on Steam sales data, Civ7 seem to be selling DLC in significant amount, so abandoning it would mean losing money.

In short, Firaxis doesn't behave like a company leading their product to death. They look like a company who made a misstep with their core product and now looking for a way to make things better.

P.S. But I still wouldn't expect "classic" mode to appear. Civilization change is woven too deep into the game.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

As we've seen, based on Steam sales data, Civ7 seem to be selling DLC in significant amount, so abandoning it would mean losing money

What data is this? I haven't seen any evidence that supports this so far

 

[stealth_nsk]

What data is this? I haven't seen any evidence that supports this so far

Civilization returned to Steam top 100. We don't know how much of the sales were with discounted base game and how much with DLC (Steam counts total amount of money generated), but in any case the game is clearly not dead.

 

[itix]

There are some suspicious things here:
1. Based on what we seen and heard, the 4th age expansion was planned and nearly confirmed by Ed around the release. Plans could change, based on player reaction, but I really doubt they changed before.

They may already be working on it. Like, what would the dev team do after the game is released? Work on expansion, for example.

P.S. But I still wouldn't expect "classic" mode to appear. Civilization change is woven too deep into the game.

It seems that each age is a mod or scenario in the game. Each age has its own set of units, civs and research trees. To create classic mode, they would have to merge all ages into one massive mod. I think it is possible but it would create one big Frankenstein of the game. Therefore, I wouldn't expect it either.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Civilization returned to Steam top 100. We don't know how much of the sales were with discounted base game and how much with DLC (Steam counts total amount of money generated), but in any case the game is clearly not dead.

You don't need a lot of sales to get into the top 100. We literally calculated in the other thread that for the position in got to relative to maneater, it represented about 3,000 DLC sales in a week. Thats a spike in sales from their baseline sure, but it's still loss making. Their staff levels require about $40mil a year. So they need a little under $1mil sales a week on average after the cuts of sales houses and publishers.

The sales from the steam chart were about 1/4mil to 1/3mil. That's not a good sign unfortunately.

 

[canadamufc]

Why are steam reviews not there for the Right to Rule? Do you have to wait or something? I want to see how it holds up vs the Crossroads reviews

 

[Core Imposter]

Neither copies sold or polls are relevant. Whatever the sales figures were, they would have been higher with a proper military element of the game. Polls are skewed by what they did do. Serious gamers haven't been around to participate in polls.

It just is what it is.