Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[aieeegrunt]

Which we only know after decisions have been made and implementations carried out. Again. It's the same loop.

It's something to think about. Particularly as recent review news seems to be pretty positive.

At this point I am assuming that everyone who dislikes Civ switching knows about it and isn’t going to buy Civ7.

So you might be seeing how the game performs with the subset of the market that either wants or does not care about that feature.

I wonder how it compares with Humankind if you go with that assumption.

 

[Gorbles]

I wonder how it compares with Humankind if you go with that assumption.

By playercount? Pretty positively in VII's favour. But I don't know what comparison you mean, to be fair.

The problem with the image of history in layers is actually a benefit of sorts, that some can be put off by the idea and not the practise. Which means, technically, they're still in a camp that can be convinced by the game as-is (nevermind any future changes).

Which is probably why Firaxis have been marketing the updates as well (imo) as they have. Maybe that's also what the stats are seeing the benefit of.

 

[Crashdummy]

Which we only know after decisions have been made and implementations carried out. Again. It's the same loop.

It's something to think about. Particularly as recent review news seems to be pretty positive.

Yes, and the reviews have changed to positive the first time they announce they are working on continuous civs

We had 8 months of them not doing that, with patches that didnt make a dent on the reviews

 

[Porry]

Yes, and the reviews have changed to positive the first time they announce they are working on continuous civs

I really don't think that's the reason!
The reason is all the improvements introduced patch after patch, thanks to the great work of the devs!

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Yes, and the reviews have changed to positive the first time they announce they are working on continuous civs

We had 8 months of them not doing that, with patches that didnt make a dent on the reviews

You can't say the "one Civ" announcement is the reason the reviews have improved. I skimmed through the English reviews since November 1st and didn't see any reviews mentioning that, but I saw plenty stating that the game has improved since launch through various updates and patches.

Also, the rise began in October after 1.2.5. The positive review % over a week/2 week periods were matching the best ever periods since launch before that announcement. The 1.3 update with free DLC has accelerated the improvement.

 

[Kwami]

Indeed, we were already writing here about the positive trends in player numbers and reviews well before the "play as one civ" announcement was made. And people who aren't buying the game until that feature is added also aren't leaving reviews. So, there's no reason to think that the announcement has anything to do with it.

 

[Crashdummy]

I really don't think that's the reason!
The reason is all the improvements introduced patch after patch, thanks to the great work of the devs!

Right, all those 8 months introducing improvements that NEVER had any impact, suddenly had impact now, after this particular patch and announcement?

Sure

 

[sonicmyst]

I suppose the sale and free dlc helped as well. I believe there are still those who simply wait for discount, and I have seen few in reddit who are new to civ game and liked it.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Right, all those 8 months introducing improvements that NEVER had any impact, suddenly had impact now, after this particular patch and announcement?

Sure

Show us all the positive Steam reviews praising the announcement of "one Civ" mode.

 

[Kwami]

Right, all those 8 months introducing improvements that NEVER had any impact, suddenly had impact now, after this particular patch and announcement?

Sure

As previously stated, the positive trend started many weeks before that announcement.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

As previously stated, the positive trend started many weeks before that announcement.

when people wondered if this was "a trend" and were dismissed

 

[Xur]

It's a sale that also increased civ5 and civ6 player numbers. Civ6 almost got twice the amount of new reviews than civ7 got, so people are actively selecting the old version over the new. Hard to say if it's price, DLC, Denuvo, FOMO or gameplay people hate about civ7. There's so much to dislike. But let's celebrate the 53%.

 

[WeirdDud]

It's a sale that also increased civ5 and civ6 player numbers. Civ6 almost got twice the amount of new reviews than civ7 got, so people are actively selecting the old version over the new. Hard to say if it's price, DLC, Denuvo, FOMO or gameplay people hate about civ7. There's so much to dislike. But let's celebrate the 53%.

It's likely price. Way easier to dip your toes into something at $6 USD than $45. (Vanilla game prices from the current sale on steam for VI and VII respectively.)

 

[Xur]

Looking at the graphs, something strange happened to the entire franchise at civ7 release. Prior to release it looks like civ6 was on a steady rise, but after civ7 release both civ6 and civ7 lost players. The total for all of the civ games went down post civ7 release. Now civ6 is climbing up again slowly while civ7 is flatlining (I got eyes, sorry).

It was normal for civ6 to have 70k-80k players before civ7. After civ7 it dropped to 40k-50k. That's a 30k drop and civ7 is at 10k on a good day. So civ7 was so succesful that it made 20k people stop playing any civ at all? That's impressive.

 

[Gorbles]

Yes, and the reviews have changed to positive the first time they announce they are working on continuous civs

We had 8 months of them not doing that, with patches that didnt make a dent on the reviews

Why would something the developers haven't even delivered yet cause both a rise in sales and a translation to positive reviews?

Surely, people waiting for some kind of change to civilisations changing during Age Transition are still waiting? The game as-is still has a thing they explicitly don't like, no?

 

[PlatinumPoster]

Looking at the graphs, something strange happened to the entire franchise at civ7 release. Prior to release it looks like civ6 was on a steady rise, but after civ7 release both civ6 and civ7 lost players. The total for all of the civ games went down post civ7 release. Now civ6 is climbing up again slowly while civ7 is flatlining (I got eyes, sorry).

It was normal for civ6 to have 70k-80k players before civ7. After civ7 it dropped to 40k-50k. That's a 30k drop and civ7 is at 10k on a good day. So civ7 was so succesful that it made 20k people stop playing any civ at all? That's impressive.

The issue is that you are not accounting for all PC Civ 6 players who bought/play Civ 7 on consoles. Civ 7 launched on all platforms on release so there will be a number of people who played Civ 6 on PC and then got Civ 7 on console. For example I have a friend that did this.

So the steam numbers alone wont tell the full picture, and is also why using steam numbers to say the game is a financial success/failure just wont work.

 

[aelf]

It was normal for civ6 to have 70k-80k players before civ7. After civ7 it dropped to 40k-50k. That's a 30k drop and civ7 is at 10k on a good day. So civ7 was so succesful that it made 20k people stop playing any civ at all? That's impressive.

Are you aware that the Civ franchise is not a closed system and there are plenty of possible confounding external factors? Plus a title will not eternally retain a player.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

It's a sale that also increased civ5 and civ6 player numbers. Civ6 almost got twice the amount of new reviews than civ7 got, so people are actively selecting the old version over the new. Hard to say if it's price, DLC, Denuvo, FOMO or gameplay people hate about civ7. There's so much to dislike. But let's celebrate the 53%.

No, no. Didn't you hear? It was the "one Civ" announcement. It has increased reviews and player counts across the Civilization franchise. What an announcement!

 

[Crashdummy]

Show us all the positive Steam reviews praising the announcement of "one Civ" mode.

The announcement reduced the negativity the game had and made those that didnt like Civ VII to be expectant of the future, allowing the ones that do like it to make the reviews positive

Of course there is not going to be positive reviews of something that wasnt launched yet....

 

[Crashdummy]

As previously stated, the positive trend started many weeks before that announcement.

There is a clear change since the announcement