Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Crashdummy]

Nobody said change has to be good. But making changes is a risk you have to take at some point, and that point is never too far away.

The formula you originally described as "a freaking sandbox game where you can build a civilization to stand the Test of Time" is vague enough that there's plenty of room to tweak it and thereby introduce changes. Arguably, Civ7 follows the same formula because civ-switching can be understood as an evolution of your civ, not a complete replacement. Whether you see it this way or not is subjective, so there's no right or wrong or any guarantee which way it would break without the benefit of hindsight. There are very few things that are as black-and-white or straightforward as you imagine.

That's why customers generally can't step in and make decisions like the Head of Product can. You only see the picture through a particular lens, and the Head of Product needs to be able to go beyond that.

Of course its vague, and because its vague it allows a lot of change

That being said, Civ 7 breaks both of the important bits of that sentence. I understand at first some people might think civ switching could be understood as an evolution of a civ, at this point i think we can all agree that isnt the case, at least for a big portion of the playerbase

Same with the sandbox element, Civ 7 clearly introduces a lot of elements that go against the sandbox gameplay

In any way, the mistake was already done, in the future i think they cant keep making the same mistake, because that will end up badly

 

[queenpea]

Is Steam down, or is there a problem with the launcher? According to SteamDB there are currently 1423 players. 6:23pm on the East Coast of the US.

 

[Gorbles]

Is Steam down, or is there a problem with the launcher? According to SteamDB there are currently 1423 players. 6:23pm on the East Coast of the US.

6,294 according to the game's Community Hub on Steam (just checked). CiV is at ~12.5k, and VI is at ~22.3k.

 

[queenpea]

6,294 according to the game's Community Hub on Steam (just checked). CiV is at ~12.5k, and VI is at ~22.3k.

Yeah SteamDB now shows around that 6k number.

 

[Wrenched]

Steam usually does maintenance every Tuesday afternoon, but I think there was a longer outage than normal today; maybe some issues. Even the store page wouldn't load properly for a while.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I'll be as on-topic as I can currently be:

It looks like June-July-August have the same peak player count and the game found a floor (for the time being) around 11850 concurrent players. Let's hope that September with a meatier patch and two new civs will see a slight upward trend above 12k, and maybe even reaching 13k again.

When did we get back over 10,000? That’s a massive improvement. We were seeing dips down to 4k range not long ago with peaks being way, way under 10k.

 

[Core Imposter]

Continues to lag Civ 5 consistently.

 

[Kwami]

Continues to lag Civ 5 consistently.

It's almost like having 13 years and multiple really great sales gives V an advantage over a game that's only been out for a few months...

 

[Chiyo]

It's almost like having 13 years and multiple really great sales gives V an advantage over a game that's only been out for a few months...

How do you explain it then that GTA 5 hast around 80.000 players currently while GTA 4 only has 1.700? Wasn't 4 released before 5 and should also be years of sales ahead? Crusader Kings III has 11.000 players while Crusader Kings 2 only has 900. It seems that it is usually the newer game that has better numbers because usually people have played the old game so much that they long for a newer version and because the newer version is more modern and had the chance to improve on the old one. Steam for example recommends me the recently released Helldivers II. It does currently have 100.000 players while the original one from 2016 (yes 3 years less sales than Civ5 but still already old) has 56 players.
I still keep coming back to this forum just to be amused how people defend the lack of success Civ7 is having. I say there is no way Civ7 will be ahead of Civ5 in 13 years of time. If they do it right Civ8 could surpass it directly after launch, though, because a lot of people want a good new Civ game.

 

[Kev1916]

It's almost like having 13 years and multiple really great sales gives V an advantage over a game that's only been out for a few months...

But could you name another 4x game were the previous version(s) have 4 times as many players!! , as the very latest and most anticipated “version”

It’s also very rare in other games , thou resident evil has varied numbers , thou not has bad as this .

So what “Civ” 7 has about 15-20% of the current daily player count .?
That looks like a fail to me

It's almost like having 13 years and multiple really great sales gives V an advantage over a game that's only been out for a few months...

i can’t think of any serious game that the latest most anticipated version has a player count less than 20% of the previous incarnations

 

[Siptah]

When did we get back over 10,000? That’s a massive improvement. We were seeing dips down to 4k range not long ago with peaks being way, way under 10k.

The numbers I posted were monthly peaks. But most peaks at the weekends were over 10k, with some being slightly less. It's still going down to 4xxx, for example at the time of this writing, and during the week, daily peaks are also often between 7k and 9k. My point was also not that it really improved, but that it stabilized (i.e., peaks don't get lower weak by weak anymore). Another user then provided data for average concurrent players (instead of peaks) that showed the same picture: around 7k average players in the past 3 months.

 

[Kev1916]

How do you explain it then that GTA 5 hast around 80.000 players currently while GTA 4 only has 1.700? Wasn't 4 released before 5 and should also be years of sales ahead? Crusader Kings III has 11.000 players while Crusader Kings 2 only has 900. It seems that it is usually the newer game that has better numbers because usually people have played the old game so much that they long for a newer version and because the newer version is more modern and had the chance to improve on the old one. Steam for example recommends me the recently released Helldivers II. It does currently have 100.000 players while the original one from 2016 (yes 3 years less sales than Civ5 but still already old) has 56 players.
I still keep coming back to this forum just to be amused how people defend the lack of success Civ7 is having. I say there is no way Civ7 will be ahead of Civ5 in 13 years of time. If they do it right Civ8 could surpass it directly after launch, though, because a lot of people want a good new Civ game.

Warhammer III - 15,500
Warhammer II - 1,355
Warhammer I - 400

Etc, currently Endless legend has 335 players , I cannot imagine any scenario were if the latest version to be released had numbers like that 6 months after launch , that it would not be described as a horrendous flop

 

[Siptah]

For the Age of Empires series, at original release, all 1-3 and Mythology were hits. Long-term, 2 stood out. Nowadays, 2 is the most played, with 4 not too far behind. 3 and Mythology are played less, 1 is barely played. All are more or less stable, as it seems (although Mythology is rather new). Talking about the Definitive Editions.

I would assume you can also find a complex picture for the Assassin's Creed franchise or Settlers.

Edit: just checked and it‘s true for Assassin‘s Creed. The most played one is (still) Origins, by far. At least on Steam, which might be a minority for these games. I couldn‘t check Settlers, as they are hardly on Steam at all. I also thought of Anno, for which I believe 1404 is more popular than the newer entries (save 1800), but it‘s also not really a Steam franchise.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Warhammer III - 15,500
Warhammer II - 1,355
Warhammer I - 400

Etc, currently Endless legend has 335 players , I cannot imagine any scenario were if the latest version to be released had numbers like that 6 months after launch , that it would not be described as a horrendous flop

If this nonsense keeps popping up, I could repeat the reply too. The arrow points at situation 1 year after Civ6 release. I assume you consider Civ6 a horrendous flop?

 

[DefinitelyNotSidMeier]

When did we get back over 10,000? That’s a massive improvement. We were seeing dips down to 4k range not long ago with peaks being way, way under 10k.

There has only been a few weeks where VII hasn't peaked over 10,000 at least once. The 4,000 range was never a peak but the lowest points in the day. We're still seeing it get to around 4,400 players during the low points.

 

[misesfan]

If this nonsense keeps popping up, I could repeat the reply too. The arrow points at situation 1 year after Civ6 release. I assume you consider Civ6 a horrendous flop?

The difference here then, is that Civ 7 is a terrible mobile-themed, deck-building game on rails, and Civ 6 is a good turn-based strategy game.

 

[DefinitelyNotSidMeier]

How do you explain it then that GTA 5 hast around 80.000 players currently while GTA 4 only has 1.700? Wasn't 4 released before 5 and should also be years of sales ahead? Crusader Kings III has 11.000 players while Crusader Kings 2 only has 900. It seems that it is usually the newer game that has better numbers because usually people have played the old game so much that they long for a newer version and because the newer version is more modern and had the chance to improve on the old one. Steam for example recommends me the recently released Helldivers II. It does currently have 100.000 players while the original one from 2016 (yes 3 years less sales than Civ5 but still already old) has 56 players.
I still keep coming back to this forum just to be amused how people defend the lack of success Civ7 is having. I say there is no way Civ7 will be ahead of Civ5 in 13 years of time. If they do it right Civ8 could surpass it directly after launch, though, because a lot of people want a good new Civ game.

More people own the newer versions of these games. Helldivers 2 was a much bigger hit than the original. I personally hadn't heard of Helldivers before the 2nd released. GTA V needs no explanation - 2nd best selling game of all time. CK3 is also a much bigger hit.

Civ VII has a long way to go to reach the 10m-15m sales that Civ V has or the 15m-20m sales that Civ VI has. There is no hiding the fact that Civ VII wasn't a hit in terms of sales like V or VI was.
The high price of the game, the announcement of DLC before its release and ultimately the poor reviews definitely hampered sales despite breaking the franchise record for pre-orders.

 

[DefinitelyNotSidMeier]

The difference here then, is that Civ 7 is a terrible mobile-themed, deck-building game on rails, and Civ 6 is a good turn-based strategy game.

That's subjective. Civ VI was not receiving good reviews after its initial release, that's why it fell to a rating of mixed on Steam and has less players than V did for quite a long time.

 

[Kev1916]

If this nonsense keeps popping up, I could repeat the reply too. The arrow points at situation 1 year after Civ6 release. I assume you consider Civ6 a horrendous flop?

View attachment 741072

What's your point caller ?

Take your time, slowly read a few post's Im sure the penny will drop if no you craic on with your nonsense post's

For a wee hand to quote - "It's almost like having 13 years and multiple really great sales gives V an advantage over a game that's only been out for a few months..."

And happy to await any reference to Civ SIX having just "15-20% of the current daily player count " of the previous two versions.

 

[Kwami]

The difference here then, is that Civ 7 is a terrible mobile-themed, deck-building game on rails, and Civ 6 is a good turn-based strategy game.

That's your opinion.

The reality is that Civ VI trailed Civ V in player count for more than 1.5 years, except a spike near release and a spike near the release of the first expansion.