Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[IntelligentDisk]

"Overrated" is a subjective position. You can say that the positive reviews were front-loaded, but to say that something is overrated is to say that it is scored too highly against an objective standard.

I would say that the positive reviews were front-loaded most likely because all of the majority of Civilization fans bought into it early and were happy with their purchase?

I don't think it needs to be compared to an objective standard, it just needs to be compared to itself. If it was rated 60% and fell to 40% I would still say the overall score by the audience at the time within the first 6 weeks must've been overrated. Likewise, say if its rated 50% initially but then rises to 70%, then it must've been underrated, only if the game doesn't get updates and have significant changes to it. If a game remains the same and starts off with reviews which aren't good but then it rises and rises, then I'd say it must've been underrated. If Civ VII didn't get updated or anything and the overall rating went from 47% to 70-80%, then I would say it must've been heavily underrated by Steam reviewers. But as its been updated for 9 months and recent Steam reviews have only just started to improve, the initial overall rating was not underrating Civ VII.

With Civ VI, it started off very positive and then as time went on, more people bought the game, more people reviewed and the overall fell 17%. It had updates & DLC too. An argument could be made that the updates & DLC made the game worse, therefore the initial reviews weren't overrated, and Civ VI just became a worse game over the next couple of years due to updates/DLC, but I don't think that's the case.

We can agree to disagree. By the way, I'm not saying the initial reviewers were wrong to rate Civ VI very positive. It's just that 2+ years went by with 40,000+ additional reviews (21,000 total at time of 83% rating) and the overall rating fell by 17%.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

I find Civ 6’s review pattern interesting because, in my view, Civ 6 is the only Civ game that got worse because of its DLC. The game just became too bloated. Civ 5, on the other hand, was enhanced (even saved) because of its DLC.

Perhaps what we’re seeing with that Civ 6 review pattern is a referendum on its DLC and not on the base game?

I don't think so. What DLC would that be? VIs reviews started falling right after 6 weeks had passed at the start of December 2016. October (only 11 days) was rated 78% with 9.1k reviews. November was rated 88% with 11.6k reviews, December was 59% with 2.1k reviews.

 

[AD1730]

I don't think it needs to be compared to an objective standard, it just needs to be compared to itself. If it was rated 60% and fell to 40% I would still say the overall score by the audience at the time within the first 6 weeks must've been overrated. Likewise, say if its rated 50% initially but then rises to 70%, then it must've been underrated, only if the game doesn't get updates and have significant changes to it. If a game remains the same and starts off with reviews which aren't good but then it rises and rises, then I'd say it must've been underrated. If Civ VII didn't get updated or anything and the overall rating went from 47% to 70-80%, then I would say it must've been heavily underrated by Steam reviewers. But as its been updated for 9 months and recent Steam reviews have only just started to improve, the initial overall rating was not underrating Civ VII.

With Civ VI, it started off very positive and then as time went on, more people bought the game, more people reviewed and the overall fell 17%. It had updates & DLC too. An argument could be made that the updates & DLC made the game worse, therefore the initial reviews weren't overrated, and Civ VI just became a worse game over the next couple of years due to updates/DLC, but I don't think that's the case.

We can agree to disagree. By the way, I'm not saying the initial reviewers were wrong to rate Civ VI very positive. It's just that 2+ years went by with 40,000+ additional reviews (21,000 total at time of 83% rating) and the overall rating fell by 17%.

Or, the people who bought the game early were most likely to like the game, and therefore more likely to give it a higher score. That doesn’t mean that it’s overrated, it just means that the target audience for the game liked it. That’s a good thing. I say this as someone who isn’t a big fan of Civ 6 (or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t like what Civ 6 became).

And this is where Civ 7 has problems. Early adopters scored it below 50%.

 

[aieeegrunt]

6 got very good pre release reviews from traditional outlets as I recall. It was clean and simple (even if kind of barebones), though I had the feeling that a lot of reviewers were kind of new to civ and this might have been their first experience. People went in expecting a good game and reviewed as such when steamreview time came. As peopled played they found some things that needed tweaking, were missing, etc.

7 opened with bad reviews. People started playing expecting to be disappointed. It'll take some doing to overcome initial perceptions (like it is with anything).

My two cents anyhow.

Or maybe, just maybe it got all those bad reviews because those people thought the game was bad?

People expecting to be disappointed wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Or maybe, just maybe it got all those bad reviews because those people thought the game was bad?

People expecting to be disappointed wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place.

While this looks logical, reading reviews and reading this forum proves that it's actually much more complex.

For example, several people on this forum wrote that they like the game, but left negative review. Why? Because review answers the question "Would you recommend the game?" and they don't think they would recommend the game. Other cases include people complaining about price or Denuvo, even though the like the game.

 

[aelf]

I’m sorry if you think I’m being repetitive or bringing no value to the conversation? I have done my best to remain polite and open to other views.

But if you want to call me a broken record, feel free.

Yes, I mean just look at the posts at the top of the previous page. You're basically repeating the same point about Civ7 still (and for some time to come) reviewing worse than Civ6 as a whole within the same page. And this point comes up every other page, usually as a way to dismiss discussion of recent trends.

Being polite is only one element of what makes quality discourse, even though it gets exclusive emphasis in these parts and people seem to love going round and round with the same talking points.

 

[Siddorm]

Yes, I mean just look at the posts at the top of the previous page. You're basically repeating the same point about Civ7 still (and for some time to come) reviewing worse than Civ6 as a whole within the same page. And this point comes up every other page, usually as a way to dismiss discussion of recent trends.

Being polite is only one element of what makes quality discourse, even though it gets exclusive emphasis in these parts and people seem to love going round and round with the same talking points.

I don't think that anyone is trying to dismiss recent trends; everyone is trying to get a more complete and balanced view of the reviews data. For example, I am not trying to be a troll or a hater or whatever, but I now have various questions in mind:
If a reviewer changes their review, how is that counted; and is the current uptick mainly due to new reviews or changed reviews? And if changed reviews are counted in the current numbers, why is the number of reviews per day so low relative to the total number; is it so rare that people change their review?
Is it better to focus on the total number of reviews since these massively outnumber recent reviews; or are the older reviews outdated because they are based on older versions of the game?
How would the graphs look if they were displayed with the y-axis fully zoomed out to show 0-100%; would this be better by allowing us to see the scope for improvement, or worse because it would make the curve look smaller?

 

[IntelligentDisk]

If a reviewer changes their review, how is that counted;

As far as I know, the old review no longer counts towards the overall, only the new review does.

and is the current uptick mainly due to new reviews or changed reviews?

It's a mixture of both, impossible to know what percentage are new reviews and how many are changed reviews. The only thing you could do is look through all the positive reviews and look at the time played and try deduce if it's a new review or a changed review. But even then that isn't a sure way to know if its a new review or a changed review.

And if changed reviews are counted in the current numbers, why is the number of reviews per day so low relative to the total number; is it so rare that people change their review?

I would say yes it's rare. Most players who bought the game and played on launch (and reviewed) aren't playing anymore. The peak concurrent players and average concurrent players are around 17% of the numbers in February. February had 34,198 reviews which is around 67% of all reviews. Therefore at best you could say 17% of initial reviewers are still playing, but its almost certainly less due to new players picking up the game since February. Then out of that 17% (at best): some have changed their review, some might think their review still stands, and some won't care to change their review.

Is it better to focus on the total number of reviews since these massively outnumber recent reviews; or are the older reviews outdated because they are based on older versions of the game?

It would depend on the game. For Civ VII, the game is being updated every month and is very different to February which is when around 67% of the reviews are from.

• ~81% of all reviews are before the 1.2 update on April 22nd.
• ~85% of all reviews are before the 1.2.1 update on May 27th.
• ~88% of all reviews are before the 1.2.2 update on June 23rd.
• ~91% of all reviews are before the 1.2.3 update on July 22nd.
• ~94% of all reviews are before the 1.2.4 update on August 19th.
• ~96% of all reviews are before the 1.2.5 update on September 30th.
• ~99% of all reviews are before the 1.3 update on November 4th.
• So, ~1% of all reviews are during the most up-to-date period of the game.

Here is a graph showing total reviews & the positive % of each update period plus launch.

Personally, if a game is being updated regularly then recent reviews would matter more to me than tens of thousands of reviews from outdated versions of the game.

Currently the past 30 days is peaking at 58.2% positive, the past 4 weeks is peaking at 58.8% positive, the past 3 weeks is peaking at 60.7 positive, the past 2 weeks is at 61.3% (down from 63.6% peak) and the past week is 55.9% (down from 68.9% peak).

How would the graphs look if they were displayed with the y-axis fully zoomed out to show 0-100%; would this be better by allowing us to see the scope for improvement, or worse because it would make the curve look smaller?

This is how they look. I think it depends, zooming all the way out makes them less readable with a lot of dead space.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I would say yes it's rare. Most players who bought the game and played on launch (and reviewed) aren't playing anymore. The peak concurrent players and average concurrent players are around 17% of the numbers in February. February had 34,198 reviews which is around 67% of all reviews. Therefore at best you could say 17% of initial reviewers are still playing, but its almost certainly less due to new players picking up the game since February. Then out of that 17% (at best): some have changed their review, some might think their review still stands, and some won't care to change their review.

While I agree with the rest of your post, I disagree with this point. Number of concurrent players (at least average) is proportional to number of active players multiplied by number of hours they play per period. So, the drop in concurrent player numbers reflects drop in either (or both) of these parameters. So, in my view it's not so much about less players, it's more about players playing less.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

While I agree with the rest of your post, I disagree with this point. Number of concurrent players (at least average) is proportional to number of active players multiplied by number of hours they play per period. So, the drop in concurrent player numbers reflects drop in wither (or both) of these parameters. So, in my view it's not so much about less players, it's more about players playing less.

That makes sense. Players are more likely to play for longer periods at launch, during updates or expansions. It'll be a mix of the two though. Less players playing at all + players playing less hours on average. I don't think you'd see a drop of 41.2k average players in February to 7k average players in the past 30 days just because players are playing less hours. The main reason will be less players playing at all, surely? It's normal.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

6 got very good pre release reviews from traditional outlets as I recall. It was clean and simple (even if kind of barebones), though I had the feeling that a lot of reviewers were kind of new to civ and this might have been their first experience. People went in expecting a good game and reviewed as such when steamreview time came. As peopled played they found some things that needed tweaking, were missing, etc.

7 opened with bad reviews. People started playing expecting to be disappointed. It'll take some doing to overcome initial perceptions (like it is with anything).

My two cents anyhow.

I felt the 7 press reviews were actually very high. I mean a 7/10 is a solid game. A bad review would be like a 1-5/10 and I’ve very rarely seen that

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I've been catching up on where things are at since the update launched, and it looks like it's the most successful update yet (to be expected but nonetheless promising news for adding unexpected previously unannounced playables).

I think what this latest peak reflects is another sale bump similar to the last sale, and a returning player bump. Given the time limited nature of the free DLC, I suspect this is a reasonably maximal bump of returning players who are willing to engage with the game in its current vision.

I think that could point to a few things in my mind:

1) Civ switching as a sub genre of 4x as implemented in games like humankind and Civ VII has a much lower player cap than conventional "choose your team and stick with them" 4x. Throwing more content and fixes and improvements at the game for nearly a year has only got the game to a quarter of the player base of Civ VI, still lower than Civ V, and the most significant noise generated in the streaming and news communities was about the return of play a Civ from start to finish. So it sounds like they've identified at least the most publicly apparent thing that's put off players and are now moving to address that.

2) it's another sign of continual improvement in the traditional Civ sense where it's rebuilding it's audience and over a few years it should take a similar trend to Civ VI and overtake the previous entries player base

I think the truth is probably between the 2, but the vitriol this iterations core design has received from a good portion of its potential audience means that growth will probably take longer and peak lower. It will probably also be quite dependent on the success of the implementation of the single Civ option.

Will also be interesting to see how the period until the next patch in January / February goes. Are more people going to play when they have time off over Christmas? Is the player count going to steadily fizzle away again down to the baseline of 6-7000 concurrent player peaks, or has a new higher baseline been established? Will EU5 drain any of that baseline audience? Next couple of months could be interesting, and next patch will be interesting. Will also be interesting to see how soon these single Civ options come to bear.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That makes sense. Players are more likely to play for longer periods at launch, during updates or expansions. It'll be a mix of the two though. Less players playing at all + players playing less hours on average. I don't think you'd see a drop of 41.2k average players in February to 7k average players in the past 30 days just because players are playing less hours. The main reason will be less players playing at all, surely? It's normal.

The core thing here is what to count as active player (if we consider drop in players, we need to define what we mean by this number). From commercial point of view Firaxis should be interested in metric, which shows players who are ready to buy DLC or expansions. I believe this should be something like "players who played at least once in the last 30 calendar days". And I think in this definition, number of active players is much higher than on launch.

I don't have stats, but I'd guess most of the active players on launch had the game on daily, for like 2-3 hours, more on weekends. Let's say that's 20 hours per week (could be much more, but we're looking for average). But after some time, a lot of people dropped to much slower mode, probably not launching game for weeks and playing with large gaps, so this could be like 2 hours per week. Of course, those numbers are totally off the top of my head, but they are within possible, so 10x drop could be caused by reduced play time alone.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

The core thing here is what to count as active player (if we consider drop in players, we need to define what we mean by this number). From commercial point of view Firaxis should be interested in metric, which shows players who are ready to buy DLC or expansions. I believe this should be something like "players who played at least once in the last 30 calendar days". And I think in this definition, number of active players is much higher than on launch.

I don't have stats, but I'd guess most of the active players on launch had the game on daily, for like 2-3 hours, more on weekends. Let's say that's 20 hours per week (could be much more, but we're looking for average). But after some time, a lot of people dropped to much slower mode, probably not launching game for weeks and playing with large gaps, so this could be like 2 hours per week. Of course, those numbers are totally off the top of my head, but they are within possible, so 10x drop could be caused by reduced play time alone.

You'd expect that to be comparable with previous iterations then though right? What would make Civ VIIs pattern of user behaviour so different from Civ VI or Civ V that concurrent player counts aren't an indicative proxy for these sorts of things?

 

[stealth_nsk]

You'd expect that to be comparable with previous iterations then though right? What would make Civ VIIs pattern of user behaviour so different from Civ VI or Civ V that concurrent player counts aren't an indicative proxy for these sorts of things?

If we speak about drop in player number after release, that's not unique, both Civ5 and Civ6 did exactly this. If we speak about particular numbers, no they shouldn't be comparable, there's nothing about it in my post. For the start, it's 9 years between Civ6 and Civ7, everything changed - from competition landscape (including indirect competition like video streaming) to the audience itself where old fans just grew older.

 

[AD1730]

I felt the 7 press reviews were actually very high. I mean a 7/10 is a solid game. A bad review would be like a 1-5/10 and I’ve very rarely seen that

Press reviews can't be trusted anymore. There's a reason the "IGN 7" is a meme at this point. They inflate scores to keep access.

 

[Gorbles]

Press reviews can't be trusted anymore. There's a reason the "IGN 7" is a meme at this point. They inflate scores to keep access.

User reviews are often based on things I personally disagree with. Should I discount all such reviews as well?

Listen, if you can prove that any given critic's review is so compromised, then sure, I'm amenable. But there's also a lot of politics and off-topicness around these claims (regardless of whether or not they're believable).

Critical reviews exist, just as user reviews exist. Finding ways to discount them because they don't align with your perception of the game is counterproductive on a number of levels.

 

[aieeegrunt]

User reviews are often based on things I personally disagree with. Should I discount all such reviews as well?

Listen, if you can prove that any given critic's review is so compromised, then sure, I'm amenable. But there's also a lot of politics and off-topicness around these claims (regardless of whether or not they're believable).

Critical reviews exist, just as user reviews exist. Finding ways to discount them because they don't align with your perception of the game is counterproductive on a number of levels.

Individuals do not have a direct perverse incentive to deliberatly inflate review scores the way game critics do

It’s not remotely comparable

 

[aelf]

If we speak about drop in player number after release, that's not unique, both Civ5 and Civ6 did exactly this. If we speak about particular numbers, no they shouldn't be comparable, there's nothing about it in my post. For the start, it's 9 years between Civ6 and Civ7, everything changed - from competition landscape (including indirect competition like video streaming) to the audience itself where old fans just grew older.

It might be worth repeating (since the discussion here seems to have its own version of the solar and lunar cycles) that my theory is Civ 6 managed to capture a majority of the 4x player population, and to the many who entered the series at that point, it cemented itself as what Civilization is. This group would probably find it even more difficult to stomach any changes than the population who had seen at least a few iterations of Civ.

 

[aieeegrunt]

It might be worth repeating (since the discussion here seems to have its own version of the solar and lunar cycles) that my theory is Civ 6 managed to capture a majority of the 4x player population, and to the many who entered the series at this point, it cemented itself as what Civilization is. This group would probably find it even more difficult to stomach any changes than the population who had seen at least a few iterations of Civ.

Which makes ditching the core identity of the game even dumber in retrospect, especially with the example of Fallout and Halo in front of you