Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Crashdummy]

I'd like to see something more akin to a classic mode too...

I just doubt that announcing it would help with interim player numbers. Players could just wait till it was out. There is a financial argument for Firaxis to do it piecemeal, keeping is in the dark... Even if they are doing it at all, which I suspect they probably aren't.

Well, maybe i am wrong, i think they might reduce the amount of negative reviews if they announce it, and if the game starts getting more positive than negative reviews then it might get some new players

But i guess they will know better

 

[AD1730]

Were there layoffs at Firaxis within the first year of release of Civ 6? I don’t see anything. Seems to be yet another indication of lackluster performance.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

3. It is a new Civ game.

Right. But why aren't these record pre-orders being shown in the Steam player numbers? Perhaps quite a lot of those pre-orders were on console. Civ VI had a much higher peak on launch and pre-ordering was a big thing in 2016 too. Record pre-orders doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, could be my number was off. I could not find my source anymore and I tried to use AI to give quick numbers. Seems there is a lot of mismatch with numbers. Steam user count (customers), steam monthly active users and steam concurrent users.

But the fact is that Steam is bigger today than 9 years ago. And more games are published than ever, but the number of AAA has not increased much, if at all. Paradox is now coming from left and right, and it could negatively impact Firaxis' sales. Old World is a very nice game from a small studio but it is not a Civ competitor. CivKind (ahem) games Millenia and Humankind, from bigger studios failed.

Yes, way off.

Yeah, fact is Steam is bigger with more active users and more games than ever, but the amount of games being added has outpaced the new active users. Indie games are very popular on Steam so I don't think AAA games matter hugely. Civ 7 is competing with all games, not just AAA. However with the addition of PlayStation games I'm sure there are more AAA games on Steam than ever before.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Were there layoffs at Firaxis within the first year of release of Civ 6? I don’t see anything. Seems to be yet another indication of lackluster performance.

I could only find evidence of layoffs at Firaxis in 2010 a couple of months before Civilization 5 was released, and 2 years ago in 2023.

 

[King Flevance]

I think updating the "road map" officially would help. You can still throw in surprises, but giving some idea as to where the game is going to go would also offer hope. If each month, the patch was going to focus on 1 or 2 connected mechanics. Like this last one focused on Wonders. Maybe Announce 3-6 month plan. Even if you announced that the patches will sometimes skip a month for a larger update. Just any official information could cause the fanbase to speculate, which is positive, usually, for this community.

 

[AddAdamSmith]

Every industry wants to maximize the amount of revenue they get from every customer, and the best way to do that is to customize your price to what the customer is willing to pay. That's tricky, though. How do you get customer A to pay $500 without losing customer B who is only willing to pay $250?

As a game publisher, you could:

• Price your game at $500. Good luck.
• Sell your base game for $50 and parcel out 10 years of DLCs.
• Sell your base game for $10 and give players an incentive to pay $1 many, many times while they play.

All of these approaches cause complaints from players, but the third has by far the greatest potential to quickly extract $500 (or more) from players who enjoy the game.

I posted a comment some 100 odd pages ago, but there is a fourth option to achieve price discrimination: Simply offer sales! Time-based discounts are right in the textbook next to student and senior discounts.

It’s not a secret, the Take-Two CEO himself describes it in a recent interview:

“Finally, you’ve decided to stick at $70 for Borderlands 4 when there was an expectation that you could go higher. Was now not the time to increase pricing?

We have had a variable pricing approach for some time. In general, the business consistently offers frontline products at a reasonable price, and then discounts over time. There have been some $80 games, and I am certain there will be some in the future. We want to deliver more value than what the customer pays for. And we want to really focus on having an experience where the thing itself is great, and what you paid for it is more than fair.”

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Civilization VII sits between Civilization VI & Civilization: Beyond Earth for player retention on Steam from month 1 to month 7. We're 2 weeks into month 8 currently. 1 month = 4 weeks/28 days. Counted from launch for each of these games.

 

[fantsu]

Well being outside Steam is a good thing for VII, more potential customers, including me. Wise decision from 2K not to force people to new ecosystem with bad rep.
Then again huge mistake from Firaxis to make Behaviour Interactive to work with the lackluster ports.

And the game fell in between. Journalists liked it, players not so much.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Well being outside Steam is a good thing for VII, more potential customers, including me. Wise decision from 2K not to force people to new ecosystem with bad rep.
Then again huge mistake from Firaxis to make Behaviour Interactive to work with the lackluster ports.

And the game fell in between. Journalists liked it, players not so much.

Games “journalism” is completely worthless to be honest

 

[Crashdummy]

And the game fell in between. Journalists liked it, players not so much.

Yeah, right, Journalists "liked" it...


The whole game was a mess, not just its design, but it was full of bugs, the UI was terrible, AI was settling in the worst places just to annoy you, but they gave the game 9s and 10s on their reviews... What happened there was very clear to anyone that wants to see it

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Civilization VII sits between Civilization VI & Civilization: Beyond Earth for player retention on Steam from month 1 to month 7. We're 2 weeks into month 8 currently. 1 month = 4 weeks/28 days. Counted from launch for each of these games.

View attachment 741661

According to SteamDB, the peak player count for Civilization VII in its first month was 84,558, not 51,384 as shown above. The peak player count for any month since release has not been less than 11,839 (July). Most recently it was 11,871. I'm not sure where the numbers above came from.

Monthly player breakdown chart from SteamDB:

EDIT: trying to fix broken image link

 

[UWHabs]

I think updating the "road map" officially would help. You can still throw in surprises, but giving some idea as to where the game is going to go would also offer hope. If each month, the patch was going to focus on 1 or 2 connected mechanics. Like this last one focused on Wonders. Maybe Announce 3-6 month plan. Even if you announced that the patches will sometimes skip a month for a larger update. Just any official information could cause the fanbase to speculate, which is positive, usually, for this community.

They have been decent at putting out some general roadmaps so far, so with the next part of the launch announced DLC coming soon, it probably would be a good time. Back early on they announced the free wonders and the plan for the monthly challenges to return, but then shelved the challenges to focus on fixing. I'd expect they're probably close to getting them going, so would be nice to know that.

And then yeah, a general roadmap - October we're going to focus on legacy paths, November we'll look at terrains and building types, and we hope to have the collapse mode ready, December we'll do (blah blah blah) wouldn't hurt.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

According to SteamDB, the peak player count for Civilization VII in its first month was 84,558, not 51,384 as shown above. The peak player count for any month since release has not been less than 11,839 (July). Most recently it was 11,871. I'm not sure where the numbers above came from.

Monthly player breakdown chart from SteamDB:View attachment 741715

EDIT: trying to fix broken image link

It is the average peak concurrent player count for each month period lasting 28 days from the launch dates. It takes into account the peak for every single day, not a singular day.

Month 1 for Civilization VI is 10/21/16 to 11/17/16. Month 7 for Civilization VI is 04/07/17 to 05/04/17. Month 1 for Civilization VII is 02/06/25 to 03/05/25. Month 7 for Civilization VII is 07/24/25 to 08/20/25.

 

[aelf]

As I suggested before, changing course now and introducing classic mode isn't really going to mollify current critics of the game. It's never going to be good enough for many of them (reversing people's opinions is difficult). The question is will it induce people who are hitherto unconvinced to buy or buy the DLCs?

But the layoffs might mean they're just going to throw a few bones in that direction without introducing sweeping changes, and maybe crank out one expansion. That would mean the game may get to a state that's good as an innovative entry to the series but will become something of a 'cult classic' with fewer overall players. But it could still get a bit of second wind after the negativity has died down.

If Firaxis does go on to make Civ VIII that's 'back to basics', it will probably be popular, but I don't see much of a potential for Civ IX unless they're willing to risk another round of this backlash. Making another samey iteration probably wouldn't cut it by then.

 

[socratic]

As I suggested before, changing course now and introducing classic mode isn't really going to mollify current critics of the game. It's never going to be good enough for many of them (reversing people's opinions is difficult). The question is will it induce people who are hitherto unconvinced to buy or buy the DLCs?

But the layoffs might mean they're just going to throw a few bones in that direction without introducing sweeping changes, and maybe crank out one expansion. That would mean the game may get to a state that's good as an innovative entry to the series but will become something of a 'cult classic' with fewer overall players. But it could still get a bit of second wind after the negativity has died down.

If Firaxis does go on to make Civ VIII that's 'back to basics', it will probably be popular, but I don't see much of a potential for Civ IX unless they're willing to risk another round of this backlash. Making another samey iteration probably wouldn't cut it by then.

Civ 7 has a lot of new additions besides Eras and Civ-Switching. Influence, towns/cities, unique civic trees, navigable rivers, the economic victory condition, new resource system, etc. There’s enough there to differentiate it from earlier games while still having that ‘classic’ formula. I don’t think a classic mode is a good idea for Civ 7 moving foward, but there is definitely a lot of innovations for a Civ 8 and 9

 

[Civinator]

but there is definitely a lot of innovations for a Civ 8 and 9

Puah - we don´t even have a real Civ 7 no early access version, and you are talking about Civ 8 and 9.

 

[socratic]

Puah - we don´t even have a real Civ 7 no early access version, and you are talking about Civ 8 and 9.

Yes? The person I replied to mentioned a Civ 8 and 9?

 

[DefinitelyNotSidMeier]

If Firaxis does go on to make Civ VIII that's 'back to basics', it will probably be popular, but I don't see much of a potential for Civ IX unless they're willing to risk another round of this backlash. Making another samey iteration probably wouldn't cut it by then.

Speculating on the potential for Civ IX which we could see released in the 2040s is insane.

 

[Gorbles]

Civ 7 has a lot of new additions besides Eras and Civ-Switching. Influence, towns/cities, unique civic trees, navigable rivers, the economic victory condition, new resource system, etc. There’s enough there to differentiate it from earlier games while still having that ‘classic’ formula. I don’t think a classic mode is a good idea for Civ 7 moving foward, but there is definitely a lot of innovations for a Civ 8 and 9

Is there? If we exclude the biggest swings, what was actually, wholly (for Civ) new and not merely changed (in VII)?

What else could be new in the future?

 

[Leucarum]

Is there? If we exclude the biggest swings, what was actually, wholly (for Civ) new and not merely changed (in VII)?

What else could be new in the future?

I've phrased it differently before. If we look at the rule of 1/3 then it's the 1/3 which was improved which really shines in Civ7. Removing builders, army commanders, towns/cities, influence... They are amazing additions, and that's what stops me going back to Civ6.

Civ7 has fallen down on its 1/3 new, even though it took its swings for good reasons, it missed a lot of the balls and is struggling to pick up the pieces... Not least because there is no uniform opinon on which balls were misses... And maybe it doesn't matter which since the new systems are so tightly intertwined that if any of them is a failure point for someone, then they all are...