Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[ColtSeavers]

I think if I worked for Firaxis (I don't), my total attention to this thread might amount to an office pool on how long it might get before people get bored and move on.

Hard to imagine a few dozen fans' uninformed speculation about what trends in concurrent player counts might mean can trump any of the telemetry they have on the in-game behavior of tens of thousands of players every week and how that behavior is changing in response to the changes they are steadily rolling out.

You mean Firaxis' famous in game data and analysis, which led them to believe, that what players really want is Civ Switching and that copying some of the most loathed mechanics from Humankind, would make this game an absolute success story?

 

[stealth_nsk]

You mean Firaxis' famous in game data and analysis, which led them to believe, that what players really want is Civ Switching and that copying some of the most loathed mechanics from Humankind, would make this game an absolute success story?

There's a difference between qualitative and quantitative data.

 

[Siddorm]

The incomplete information, impossible-to-answer-perfectly questions, and lack of a pre-determined agenda or motive, is what is keeping this discussion alive. It has been intriguing to see such a variety of thoughts about the same sets of numbers.

 

[Kev1916]

I made no exaggerated claim. I stated my opinion, which you're entirely within rights to disagree with.

Neither of us are 2K, so on the topic of claims, you probably shouldn't jump to claiming to know exactly what they're looking for.

Pot and kettle

“5% growth - if retained - is actually very significant growth. If Firaxis can start a concurrent user climb over time, that's exactly what they're looking for”

 

[Smegger213]

Pot and kettle

“5% growth - if retained - is actually very significant growth. If Firaxis can start a concurrent user climb over time, that's exactly what they're looking for”

They ain't getting much growth though. They had a slight uptake in player numbers after the last patch. But now its dropped back down to the 8000 to 9000 player peak each day.
In contrast, Civ 5 is getting over 15000 player peak each day.

 

[GeneralZift]

This number is 0.03 higher than I've seen recently. Sign of a turnaround? View attachment 744700

Look guys, if there's one takeaway I got from Civilization, it's that when the smiling face turns into a frown face, your growth is stifled.

 

[Gorbles]

They ain't getting much growth though. They had a slight uptake in player numbers after the last patch. But now its dropped back down to the 8000 to 9000 player peak each day.
In contrast, Civ 5 is getting over 15000 player peak each day.

Which is why the next month's stats on Steam Charts were always going to be relevant.

(keeping roadmap speculation for its own threads, but if people want to talk about how a marketing push did something in September, that means dev engagement is arguably a plus for metrics)

Pot and kettle

“5% growth - if retained - is actually very significant growth. If Firaxis can start a concurrent user climb over time, that's exactly what they're looking for”

Yes, this is why I said "if" twice. Do please try a d not resort to the fallacy game - at least without first trying to engage with the point made!

 

[aelf]

You mean Firaxis' famous in game data and analysis, which led them to believe, that what players really want is Civ Switching and that copying some of the most loathed mechanics from Humankind, would make this game an absolute success story?

What "in game data" concern such information when the decisions were made?

 

[GeneralZift]

What "in game data" concern such information when the decisions were made?

I think OP was suggesting that no such appropriate in-game data exists for it to be the reason why those decisions were made.
And he was responding to someone who was saying that the in-game telemetry makes the developers more aware than the players.
But if such data existed and was as informative as that someone suggested, then OP is saying, Well why did they not use this data to forsee the unpopularity of their decisions?

 

[aieeegrunt]

I think OP was suggesting that no such appropriate in-game data exists for it to be the reason why those decisions were made.
And he was responding to someone who was saying that the in-game telemetry makes the developers more aware than the players.
But if such data existed and was as informative as that someone suggested, then OP is saying, Well why did they not use this data to forsee the unpopularity of their decisions?

Complete and utter hubris. They had the examples of Fallout 76 and Halo Infinite before them to show that gutting the core identity of a franchise is a terrible idea.

They even had the example of Humankind to specifically show that Civ switching is extremely unpopular.

Whom The Gods Destroy….

 

[Leucarum]

They even had the example of Humankind to specifically show that Civ switching is extremely unpopular.

They've been pretty clear that their design was already locked in when Humankind came out. I agree that Civ switching sucks and sucks hard... but can we stop with this particular comment. It doesn't sound like it's actually true.

 

[aelf]

I think OP was suggesting that no such appropriate in-game data exists for it to be the reason why those decisions were made.
And he was responding to someone who was saying that the in-game telemetry makes the developers more aware than the players.
But if such data existed and was as informative as that someone suggested, then OP is saying, Well why did they not use this data to forsee the unpopularity of their decisions?

Huh? Wasn't that someone talking about data with regard to recent changes post-launch and how they affect player behaviour? Nothing to do with Humankind.

Seems obvious that in-game data would only exist post-launch. How is this confusing people?

 

[ColtSeavers]

Huh? Wasn't that someone talking about data with regard to recent changes post-launch and how they affect player behaviour? Nothing to do with Humankind.

Seems obvious that in-game data would only exist post-launch. How is this confusing people?

Ed Beach & Co claimed before the launch of Civ 7 that they had supposedly looked at and analyzed player data from Civ 6 in detail, and based key decisions, like civ switching, on that. Whether Civ 7 or Humankind invented Civ Switching is not important, what matters is that it was already very unpopular in Humankind, and yet they still decided to stick with it in Civ 7! Nothing more, nothing less!

 

[Leucarum]

Ed Beach & Co claimed before the launch of Civ 7 that they had supposedly looked at and analyzed player data from Civ 6 in detail, and based key decisions, like civ switching, on that. Whether Civ 7 or Humankind invented Civ Switching is not important, what matters is that it was already very unpopular in Humankind, and yet they still decided to stick with it in Civ 7! Nothing more, nothing less!

Civ7 I think goes downhill very, very fast. And by modern if is probably the worst Civ game in the franchise. While for me Antiquity is the best civ experience ever produced, it can't hold the entire game on its shoulders, and overall, the monkey paw curled on the devs hard.

However... I don't agree with your argument in the slightest.

The devs have gone over the logic of everything they wanted to achieve and why their decisions led to one another... And as much as I think the end product was a mistake, I can understand why they went down each step in turn and it makes sense.

I believe the most prominent comment about player data specifically was about how many players were finishing games. In isolation I don't think trying to get players to play all the way through a Civ game is a bad goal... And I understand for devs - if you are making end game content and most games never get that far it's got to be somewhere between disheartening and frustrating.

So, while Civ7 is so far not living up to its promise, I find it difficult to say that the devs made illogical decisions. Each individual step in their thought process as described makes sense, it's just that the combination is not great.

Ultimately I think they underestimated how much of the audience get turned off by having stuff taken away (ages & civ switching), how much a lot of the audience identify with their civ and use that as the identity of their game, and then built a game design which requires curtailing snowballing - only to find that for a large amount of the playerbase the snowball is the game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

They've been pretty clear that their design was already locked in when Humankind came out. I agree that Civ switching sucks and sucks hard... but can we stop with this particular comment. It doesn't sound like it's actually true.

So better to continue driving off a cliff than try to course correct

Again, hubris

 

[Leucarum]

So better to continue driving off a cliff than try to course correct

Again, hubris

I think they do look like they are correcting their course. Ages have gotten significantly smoother for example. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's possible for them to be as agile as a lot of the fans would like. This is the course correction of an oil tanker in the middle of the Suez Canal.

I don't know how far they'll go and whether it'll be enough for everyone (Personally, as long as Civs are locked to specific eras I won't buy DLC at their retail price). But ultimately this is a company, they're going to be far more driven by the bottom line and not so much driven by hubris. If that bottom line says revert unpopular features then they'll either end up there or flop.

 

[trev1972]

Ed Beach & Co claimed before the launch of Civ 7 that they had supposedly looked at and analyzed player data from Civ 6 in detail, and based key decisions, like civ switching, on that. Whether Civ 7 or Humankind invented Civ Switching is not important, what matters is that it was already very unpopular in Humankind, and yet they still decided to stick with it in Civ 7! Nothing more, nothing less!

I am afraid i believe the real reason they decided to have civ switching and mix and match leaders was to make it easier to sell small chunks of DLC.
I think they under-estimated the pushback they would get as a result

 

[ColtSeavers]

Civ7 I think goes downhill very, very fast. And by modern if is probably the worst Civ game in the franchise. While for me Antiquity is the best civ experience ever produced, it can't hold the entire game on its shoulders, and overall, the monkey paw curled on the devs hard.

However... I don't agree with your argument in the slightest.

The devs have gone over the logic of everything they wanted to achieve and why their decisions led to one another... And as much as I think the end product was a mistake, I can understand why they went down each step in turn and it makes sense.

I believe the most prominent comment about player data specifically was about how many players were finishing games. In isolation I don't think trying to get players to play all the way through a Civ game is a bad goal... And I understand for devs - if you are making end game content and most games never get that far it's got to be somewhere between disheartening and frustrating.

So, while Civ7 is so far not living up to its promise, I find it difficult to say that the devs made illogical decisions. Each individual step in their thought process as described makes sense, it's just that the combination is not great.

Ultimately I think they underestimated how much of the audience get turned off by having stuff taken away (ages & civ switching), how much a lot of the audience identify with their civ and use that as the identity of their game, and then built a game design which requires curtailing snowballing - only to find that for a large amount of the playerbase the snowball is the game.

My post was mainly a reply to Kent77’s claim that Firaxis doesn’t need to read threads like this because they’ve got amazing telemetry and already know everything. I think that’s nonsense. Just look at the kind of lousy calls they made when they thought they understood the Civ 6 player data.

That aside, I do think it’s pretty likely the Devs twisted a few arguments to justify their ideas for Civ switching. Like that claim about players supposedly identifying more with leaders than with civs, just to back up Civ Switchung instead of doing Leader Switching. There’s no real evidence for that, and it’s certainly not something you can pull from player data. It feels more like they were looking for a straw man to defend decisions they’d already made anyway.

 

[itix]

My post was mainly a reply to Kent77’s claim that Firaxis doesn’t need to read threads like this because they’ve got amazing telemetry and already know everything. I think that’s nonsense. Just look at the kind of lousy calls they made when they thought they understood the Civ 6 player data.

That aside, I do think it’s pretty likely the Devs twisted a few arguments to justify their ideas for Civ switching. Like that claim about players supposedly identifying more with leaders than with civs, just to back up Civ Switchung instead of doing Leader Switching. There’s no real evidence for that, and it’s certainly not something you can pull from player data. It feels more like they were looking for a straw man to defend decisions they’d already made anyway.

Apparently, they read threads...

It’s the leaders, after all, that really count for Civilization players. Among fans, Beach explains, discussion of most hated opponents and most favoured allies always comes back to the individuals in charge. “The fact that Gilgamesh turned into Gilgabro in our fan community because everyone loved having him as their ally, and that the memes and cartoon art were always about the leaders? It became very clear that the identity of the other competing players is always the leader.”

Quote from Edge UK magazine, issue #405.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Apparently, they read threads...

It’s the leaders, after all, that really count for Civilization players. Among fans, Beach explains, discussion of most hated opponents and most favoured allies always comes back to the individuals in charge. “The fact that Gilgamesh turned into Gilgabro in our fan community because everyone loved having him as their ally, and that the memes and cartoon art were always about the leaders? It became very clear that the identity of the other competing players is always the leader.”

Quote from Edge UK magazine, issue #405.

Well, that's exactly what I mean. He just throws out a statement that sounds pretty anecdotal at best after all. Who in the community did he talk to, and how can he be so sure that this kind of feedback is representative? Sounds more like wishful thinking on his part, if you ask me.