Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Leucarum]

It's a good sign that they aren't giving up on it any time soon. As well as an indication that they are aware changes are needed for it to hit its targets.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I think this articles lacks more diversifying. It talks about per-week spending, so it looks like it's more about microtransactions.


That's what I was talking about for the long time. Simultaneous players metric doesn't show anything useful for the potential game success, the main problem is with current low ratings. And from various sources of data we've seen so far, nothing catastrophic happens.

Civ7’s peak was half of 6’s. It’s going to have to be one hell of a trend bucking statistical anomaly to have an overall performance anywhere near it.

You are seriously going by a CEO’s fluff soeech? What else is he going to say?

 

[Gorbles]

He’s shifting the goalpost here.

I figure the CEO has more of an idea of the goalpost r.e. what his company defines as success than any consumer looking in (e.g. me or you).

You are seriously going by a CEO’s fluff soeech? What else is he going to say?

And if he said the game was doing badly and they were looking to make changes at Firaxis?

You'd believe him then, but not here? Or nah?

It's like the earnings call all over again.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Yeah I think the interesting thing there was the internal projections are still on track for lifetime. So the numbers they made up still add up.

However the numbers from reality he has admitted reflect a slow start.

So that's interesting for 2 reasons. 1 it confirms that it is currently performing below expectations in the context to which the CEO was talking. And 2 it speaks to their commitment to lifetime support of the game. They still think they can make it a gold mine, and they are gonna keep sinking time and money into making it a gold mine.

Or it could just be CEO speak to keep up stock prices, who knows. But it's certainly not glowing

 

[Gori the Grey]

1 it confirms that it is currently performing below expectations

Yes, it's the single hardest piece of data on that point that we've had.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Civ7’s peak was half of 6’s. It’s going to have to be one hell of a trend bucking statistical anomaly to have an overall performance anywhere near it.

You are seriously going by a CEO’s fluff soeech? What else is he going to say?

It's not statistical anomaly it's just irrelevant metric. Simultaneous player number has pretty weak connection with number of active players, which is not the same as number of game buyers, which, in turn, have pretty weak connection to projected LTV.

Projected LTV is a real metric, which is calculated based on real data and plans. Sure, CEO could try to show things in bright light, but speaking about actual metric meeting expectations would be direct lie, which those people usually avoid.

As I see it, the game performs below optimistic expectations, but is still on track to make profits. So, corporate speak here is to avoid naming it "pessimistic scenario".

 

[aieeegrunt]

I figure the CEO has more of an idea of the goalpost r.e. what his company defines as success than any consumer looking in (e.g. me or you).


And if he said the game was doing badly and they were looking to make changes at Firaxis?

You'd believe him then, but not here? Or nah?

It's like the earnings call all over again.

Do I really need to explain why he might be trying to put a positive spin on things?

 

[Core Imposter]

I guess this is one of those situations where you hear what you want to hear.

 

[Krajzen]

They still think they can make it a gold mine, and they are gonna keep sinking time and money into making it a gold mine.

I mean what other options do they have considering the time needed to make another civ game, call it a day and sink millions in making the next one and don't get any income for like five years? In the worst case they can at least get some more data on what do civ fans want (hint: it's not civ switching).

 

[SupremacyKing2]

He’s shifting the goalpost here. While Civ is a franchise with a long tail, it’s important to note that Civ 7 never got close to the peak simultaneous player count that Civ 6 reached. I have a hard time believing that Take Two’s expectations for Civ 7 were so low. If they knew the game would be this poorly received, why wasn’t the game delayed and personnel changes made?

I don't think Take Two cares about peak simultaneous player count because it is not a super useful metric for determining long term profitability. And ultimately, Take Two cares about making money from the game. So civ7 may have a much lower peak simultaneous player count that civ6 but if it has a decent "long tail" then they can milk it with DLCs and expansions and make more money long term. You can make more money with recurring payments than you do with one big lump sum up front.

 

[AD1730]

I don't think Take Two cares about peak simultaneous player count because it is not a super useful metric for determining long term profitability. And ultimately, Take Two cares about making money from the game. So civ7 may have a much lower peak simultaneous player count that civ6 but if it has a decent "long tail" then they can milk it with DLCs and expansions and make more money long term. You can make more money with recurring payments than you do with one big lump sum up front.

You’re not going to sell many DLCs and expansions for a game that not many people are passionate about. Peak player count is a pretty good indicator of that, along with its review score.

 

[stealth_nsk]

You’re not going to sell many DLCs and expansions for a game that not many people are passionate about. Peak player count is a pretty good indicator of that, along with its review score.

Simultaneous player count has almost nothing to do with sales.

 

[Core Imposter]

Simultaneous player count has almost nothing to do with sales.

I just don't understand the logic behind your statement here.

 

[kaspergm]

Game is 30 % off on Steam now and until August 25th? If it was not because my summer holiday ended literally today, I would be tempted.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Peak player count is a pretty good indicator of that, along with its review score.

No, it is not. Peak player count tells you the maximum number of players playing at the same time. Lots of players might play the game at first and then give up. So peak player count does not tell you many players will actually stick around long term which is what you need to sell DLCs. And review score might determine how many new sales of the base game they get, from people who are looking the buy the game for the first time. Maybe a new player is turned off from buying the base game because of the low review sore. But review score will not determine if existing players will buy the DLC. That is because existing players already know the game. Existing players don't need to look at a review score for the base game to know if they want to buy a DLC. The publisher does not care about 100 new people buying the base game, they care about 1000 existing players getting the new DLC. That is where they make more money after the base game is released.

Think of it this way:

Game A: 100k players play the game at launch. So it has a peak player count of 100k. Sounds great. But 2 months later, only 1000 players are still playing the game. So really, only 1000 at most will be interested in buying a DLC. So the peak player count of 100k was not indicative of the 1000 who are actually still interested in the game.

Game B: Only 20k players play the game at launch. So peak player count is much lower. But 2 months later, 10k are still playing the game. So that is 10k who might still be interested in a DLC. Much higher than the 1000 playing game A.

Between game A and B, which one do you think a publisher wants? They don't want game A even though it has the higher peak player count because the number of players who will be interested in buying DLCs is much lower. They actually want game B because it has more long term players who will keep buying DLCs and therefore give them more recurring income.

 

[Crashdummy]

The main stated reason for civ switching in particular was the difference between early and late civs. And there were more reasons stated for age transitions, for example, to fight snowballing or to allow playing shorter games in multiplayer. From gameplay perspective all this was pretty consistent game design, so I wouldn't look for reasons for those decisions elsewhere.

P.S. Of course this doesn't negate the fact that for some players civ switching was immersion breaker or that with that amount of revolutionary changes, the game was released in a pretty unfinished state. I talking about game design consistency only.

Yeah, i dont buy that. Civ switching is a major change to make with the excuse of "early versus late game civs" You could fix that by just giving all civs special units in early, mid and late.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I just don't understand the logic behind your statement here.

I actually started describing how those metrics work, but it turns out to be something like small article. I'll probably push it here once I finish it.

 

[Crashdummy]

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Insists Projections for the 'Lifetime Value' of Civilization 7 Are 'Very Consistent With Our Initial Expectations for the Title' — Despite 'Slow Start' - IGN

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Insists Projections for the 'Lifetime Value' of Civilization 7 Are 'Very Consistent With Our Initial Expectations for the Title' — Despite 'Slow Start' - IGN

We’re now half a year since the troubled launch of Civilization 7, which has fewer players on Steam than both Civilization 6 and the 15-year-old Civilization 5. But according to the boss of Take-Two, Civ 7 is projected to meet the company's initial internal expectations over the course of its...

www.ign.com

The game wouldnt be on sale twice in 6 months if it was doing well

The comment on slow start is basically admitting its doing bad IMHO

 

[AD1730]

No, it is not. Peak player count tells you the maximum number of players playing at the same time. Lots of players might play the game at first and then give up. So peak player count does not tell you many players will actually stick around long term which is what you need to sell DLCs. And review score might determine how many new sales of the base game they get, from people who are looking the buy the game for the first time. Maybe a new player is turned off from buying the base game because of the low review sore. But review score will not determine if existing players will buy the DLC. That is because existing players already know the game. Existing players don't need to look at a review score for the base game to know if they want to buy a DLC. The publisher does not care about 100 new people buying the base game, they care about 1000 existing players getting the new DLC. That is where they make more money after the base game is released.

Think of it this way:

Game A: 100k players play the game at launch. So it has a peak player count of 100k. Sounds great. But 2 months later, only 1000 players are still playing the game. So really, only 1000 at most will be interested in buying a DLC. So the peak player count of 100k was not indicative of the 1000 who are actually still interested in the game.

Game B: Only 20k players play the game at launch. So peak player count is much lower. But 2 months later, 10k are still playing the game. So that is 10k who might still be interested in a DLC. Much higher than the 1000 playing game A.

Between game A and B, which one do you think a publisher wants? They don't want game A even though it has the higher peak player count because the number of players who will be interested in buying DLCs is much lower. They actually want game B because it has more long term players who will keep buying DLCs and therefore give them more recurring income.

Civ 7 is worse than Civ 6 in peak player count and in concurrent players 2 months post-release. Neither of the scenarios you provide describe Civ 7, as Civ 7 has the worst end of both of them.

 

[Core Imposter]

So it would seem that the most profitable move would be to release more content for Civ 6.

edit: or even Civ 5...