Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Bug Repellent]

This discussion went the wrong way, but just to add on the quarterly results of Take Two:

- The net loss (and negative cash flow) is narrowing, so the health of the company on a GAAP earnings (and cash) basis is getting better.
- The GAAP net loss is largely driven by amortisation of acquisitions, which is a non-cash item, which some market participants ignore (discussing anything else here is a corporate finance debate).
- Bookings and user engagement are improving and have been updated to be better than previously estimated by management.
- Also, the balance sheet net debt position of the firm is solid; hence, any GAAP losses are easily digestible.
- Share price in anticipation of GTA also up hugely (vs. the S&P 500, for instance), meaning the window to any sort of financing is widely open for the company.
- CIV7 and Firaxis are really a small part of the overall business (NBA, GTA, Mobile are far more important).
- There was a reference in the earnings call towards updates for Civ7 coming out, and that it's a strong proposition of Take Two's further partnership with Nintendo (this seems pretty important to them).

You cannot make a judgement about Firaxis within Take Two on the basis of that. It seems also unlikely to me that anything like studio reorganisation/closure would be discussed during an earnings call. Also note that this is no financial advise on Take-Two common equity.

Yeah, I would never touch a stock like this one and it doesn't surprise me TTWO is down 3.7% post earnings. That being said, I completely agree: Civ is a small potato for TTWO. But it's not small for Firaxis and even 2K, so I do expect pressure on Firaxis "from above" regarding Civ7.

What I did find interesting is the meager 11% revenue from PC games. Many say Civ7 often feels like an (online) board game. Well, I'm sure that's what the bean counters at TTWO are likely pushing Firaxis to do: make the game more suitable for mobile and consoles. That's where their revenue is. I feel like an old dinosaur now as I only game on PC.

 

[WillK96]

Yeah, I would never touch a stock like this one and it doesn't surprise me TTWO is down 3.7% post earnings. That being said, I completely agree: Civ is a small potato for TTWO. But it's not small for Firaxis and even 2K, so I do expect pressure on Firaxis "from above" regarding Civ7.

What I did find interesting is the meager 11% revenue from PC games. Many say Civ7 often feels like an (online) board game. Well, I'm sure that's what the bean counters at TTWO are likely pushing Firaxis to do: make the game more suitable for mobile and consoles. That's where their revenue is. I feel like an old dinosaur now as I only game on PC.

I think we underestimate the insane amount of micotransactions possible in mobile games, which accounts for well over a supermajority of the mobile gaming revenue. Oh you want a new life for your silly mobile game, that's $1. Now multiply that 10 times a day by roughly 300 million teenagers and adults with access to mobile gaming.

 

[Ornen]

Is it plausible that Firaxis is doing such a poor job as part of some convoluted attempt to be sold off by 2K? Maybe it's not a secret plot - just a masterclass in how not to make a game.

contrary to some other posters here, I think this is fairly plausible.

set C7's performance aside, Firaxis' portfolio does not really fit in with the rest of 2k's lineup, 80% of which are heavy multiplayer, microtransaction driven. that doesn't mean it can't fit at 2k, but it does mean selling Firaxis or spinning it off wouldn't be totally implausible.

add onto that: three flops in a row (Chimera Squad, Midnight Suns, Civ 7) and yeah, I could see it happening. maybe not most likely scenario, but I wouldn't be surprised.

fwiw 2k installed new leadership at Firaxis in 2023, someone who was previously a producer on Fortnite, Plants vs Zombies, and Bejeweled

I think if they can't get a DLC model working at Firaxis, on the level they want it to be working, they would consider selling.

 

[nakzox]

We don't know that. It could be a colossal flop.

It'll probably make a billion dollars just from pre-orders and launch day sales alone. Even if it does suck, it'll still generate the money they're looking for before anyone even finds out.

 

[Maiq]

It'll probably make a billion dollars just from pre-orders and launch day sales alone. Even if it does suck, it'll still generate the money they're looking for before anyone even finds out.

Don't forget about whatever online mode they have.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think if they can't get a DLC model working at Firaxis, on the level they want it to be working, they would consider selling.

I think this is plausible, but not that they're deliberately tanking their games to make it happen.

 

[Core Imposter]

You can see by the earnings call that the important thing about C7 was its release on the various platforms. This is where they see growth potential (or at least they want to make it look so). The quality of Civ gameplay was less important than just getting the simultaneous release done.

 

[bladex1200]

You can see by the earnings call that the important thing about C7 was its release on the various platforms. This is where they see growth potential (or at least they want to make it look so). The quality of Civ gameplay was less important than just getting the simultaneous release done.

To be fair, to a company's investors that's the most important thing. Obviously they want a certain level of quality that will drive sales, but since sales do not 1-1 correlate with quality (see mobile game microtransactions for a great example of how tacking onto a minimum-viable-product can pay off), obviously you'd want to present big platform ports/releases as opportunities for growth.

Even if Civ was doing well critically, that wouldn't really be of concern to investors unless you were going to assure them that critical success would lead to markedly-higher commercial success (remember the metric is YoY growth, doesn't matter if sales are great if they aren't out-performing previous years and set expectations). You'd just say it was selling well and outperforming its metrics.

So I don't think one necessarily can read anything nefarious here, insofar that this is just how capitalism operates.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's interesting that we have several pages already about TT finances, but everyone ignore change in civ franchise sale number.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think we underestimate the insane amount of micotransactions possible in mobile games, which accounts for well over a supermajority of the mobile gaming revenue. Oh you want a new life for your silly mobile game, that's $1. Now multiply that 10 times a day by roughly 300 million teenagers and adults with access to mobile gaming.

Yeah, this came up a few pages back on this thread, when looking at the top selling games on Steam. The list is dominated by games that are funded through in game transactions. That is where the money is at. People will blow a gasket at the thought of paying $90 upfront for a game, then spend $1 a hundred times over the course of a year on a different game. But every time they spend that $1 they get immediate gratification and see the impact that $1 bought them. Whereas paying a big lump sum upfront feels like a commitment people don't always want to make.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It's interesting that we have several pages already about TT finances, but everyone ignore change in civ franchise sale number.

As far as I can tell, Take-Two doesn't mention it, either. It doesn't feature in their core release about the quarter, as far as I can see. In their larger, investor relations presentation (intended for people who aren't familiar with the company), they mention that the series has sold 77 million units over its lifetime, but you'd need to pull up the prior quarter's presentation to see that it used to be 76 million units. They don't highlight the 1 million increase anywhere that I saw. Maybe its somewhere that I missed.

Those numbers are rounded, so the actual unit sales for the quarter could have been anywhere from 600k to 1.4M. There's no indication that I saw about where they came from, either by version (base or DLC) or platform.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As far as I can tell, Take-Two doesn't mention it, either. It doesn't feature in their core release about the quarter, as far as I can see. In their larger, investor relations presentation (intended for people who aren't familiar with the company), they mention that the series has sold 77 million units over its lifetime, but you'd need to pull up the prior quarter's presentation to see that it used to be 76 million units. They don't highlight the 1 million increase anywhere that I saw. Maybe its somewhere that I missed.

Those numbers are rounded, so the actual unit sales for the quarter could have been anywhere from 600k to 1.4M. There's no indication that I saw about where they came from, either by version (base or DLC) or platform.

Yeah, it's just when presentations appeared, I posted here about two things - financial results being ok and estimated sales growing. And I got a lot of replies about the first part, but nobody was interested in the second (or just didn't read to second paragraph).

 

[Kwami]

Yeah, it's just when presentations appeared, I posted here about two things - financial results being ok and estimated sales growing. And I got a lot of replies about the first part, but nobody was interested in the second (or just didn't read to second paragraph).

That's probably because going from 76M to 77M doesn't tell us much.

 

[Core Imposter]

In my view though, this is good news for Firaxis and the future of Civ7. You don't tell investors about the successful simultaneous release and then yank the rug out from under the related studio/game.

Doesn't mean they are off the hook forever, but they should have the opportunity to nail the next release.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I am the same about that journey and looking back. I loved the map replay at the end of games. I think the most fundamental "problem" is that civ games have always been sandbox games and people could play it 1000 different ways. Civ7 is not a sandbox - it's on rails, smaller and arcadey with 3 "levels".

I still prefer RL civs though. But I could not care less if leaders were completely axed from civ8. There has been way too much focus on leaders and I get why - they are great for DLC/marketing.

This, THIS right here is one of the biggest reasons the majority of the fanbase rightly rejected this game

Civ used to be a series that was pretty inclusive of a variety of playstyles.

If you wanted to immerse youself in the sandbox and construct your own story, your own narrative, you could.

“The Beacons are lit, Valletta calls for aid”

“AND ROME SHALL ANSWER”

If you were a min maxer who wanted to carefully craft a city with the highest campus adjacency possible, you could.

If you wanted to be Meme Genghis Khan and raze and pillage till all the globe was Mongol, you could.

Now?

“The beacons are lit!! Valletta calls for-“

ERA RESET

“I just need to build this to get that last adjacency”

ERA RESET

“MY GLORIOUS IRON HORSES CLOSE UPON THE LAST STRONGHOLD OF THE INCA”

ERA RESET, MONGOLS ARE NOW SIAM

They're also great for immersion, for people that prefer interacting with figureheads. I've liked that all the way back to Civ 1. The leader quotes and banter in SMAC are a highlight of that game, to me.

Provost.

The Civ2 advisors will alway hold a special place in my heart, especially during Anarchy

In the last 24 hours, an average of 8,000 players played in Civ VII, while 40,000 played in Civ VI... incredible.

Bwa ha ha savage

This makes me wonder... would it work if players could keep their original empire name? Start playing as Rome and keep it so to the end.

I mean you also have to get rid of era resets as well

It is possible that Civ VII never catches up Civ VI.

Unless you have some sort of Classic Mode Relaunch it’s highly probable

 

[Ornen]

I think this is plausible, but not that they're deliberately tanking their games to make it happen.

ok yeah I misread that part of the sentence

 

[reyaik]

The video game industry overall faces a period of saturation and growing costs that they cannot handle with price increases right now. One of the issues the AAA industry has is that they are not totally clear about the pricing mechanism, i.e. up-front, subscription, in-game, etc. The problem is that these managerial issues sometimes get dragged into the studios. When you look at the CIV7 approach, this seems pretty clear to me: 1. Leaders and personas: These could in theory pave the way for in-game purchases and cosmetics to be purchased. 2. Cross-platform: Maximise sales, and strengthen cross-platform play relevant for multiplayer. Civ-switching: allows for plenty of DLCs and increased multiplayer appeal given various optimal combinations. If you take a managerial perspective on this, it seems to me almost as if they were trying to foster an e-sport-like approach around the multiplayer/cross-play approach. I would think that this approach might even deepen as long as CIV is developed within Take Two, even though it led to the mixed reviews by a highly single-player-focused and immersion-driven player base that rejects many of the entry points for the additional monetisation routes. I think the "worst" case here is something akin to the EA Sports football simulation, which relies heavily on its multiplayer-focused ultimate game mode that has eroded the quality of the single-player career mode for the past ten years.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The video game industry overall faces a period of saturation and growing costs that they cannot handle with price increases right now. One of the issues the AAA industry has is that they are not totally clear about the pricing mechanism, i.e. up-front, subscription, in-game, etc. The problem is that these managerial issues sometimes get dragged into the studios. When you look at the CIV7 approach, this seems pretty clear to me: 1. Leaders and personas: These could in theory pave the way for in-game purchases and cosmetics to be purchased. 2. Cross-platform: Maximise sales, and strengthen cross-platform play relevant for multiplayer. Civ-switching: allows for plenty of DLCs and increased multiplayer appeal given various optimal combinations. If you take a managerial perspective on this, it seems to me almost as if they were trying to foster an e-sport-like approach around the multiplayer/cross-play approach. I would think that this approach might even deepen as long as CIV is developed within Take Two, even though it led to the mixed reviews by a highly single-player-focused and immersion-driven player base that rejects many of the entry points for the additional monetisation routes. I think the "worst" case here is something akin to the EA Sports football simulation, which relies heavily on its multiplayer-focused ultimate game mode that has eroded the quality of the single-player career mode for the past ten years.

While I agree that pricing models are something companies are considering, I don't think they affected gameplay decisions you've mentioned:

1. Personas are very obvious way to save money on production. Leaders are extremely expensive to model, animate, voiceover, etc. Personas are a cheap way to add more gameplay variety, but they are very restricted, because different personas of the same leader can't appear in the same game. So, they are kind of bonus content, not something with primary goal of being sold. Even those who could be bought now, were originally reward for purchasing edition.
2. Cross-platform is surely a commercial decision, together with focus on multiplayer, but I don't see how it's connected to pricing model.
3. Civ switching has pure gameplay reasons, which were explained by developers. Also, developers described how they shown first prototype to management with age transition and civ switching already baked in. That's the decision made by Firaxis before any corporate management had any word into in.

Also, it's interesting point about Civilization potentially going to esports, it's bold stake, but there's significant ground underneath. First, esports themselves are growing really fast and incorporate more intellectual games like chess. Second, Zuckerberg and some other big people having interest in the game could actually create a niche.

So, I see it like this - focus on multiplayer and cross-platform was the original call from 2K management, but they didn't push anything about monetization. What we see now in terms of monetization is the same old model used since Civ5.

 

[itix]

I get flashbacks of Happy Gilmoure 2 when I hear about civ esports.

 

[reyaik]

Well, yes, the current monetisation model is up-front, but the entire setup smells so much like it's trying to introduce more channels for commercial success. Building a multiplayer community is the first step to drive in-game purchases as an example. You can see that with Fortnite, etc. It's true that many of these game concepts have some game design rationale or were presented like this, but they handily also open up these additional revenue opportunities.