Steam Charts: some statistics of interest

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I'm knid of amazed at this mindset. It's a relatively short, time wise, play thru game. Starting over shouldn't be that much of a hassle.

But since I'm not interested in Steams badges, or whatever they are called, maybe that's what your concern is about?

As to the OP, I never played CiV, and Only because this was a Sci-Fi verrsion of Civ did I pre-order. So how many players are like me? I've played Civ IV and BtS (plus Mods for BtS) for the last 7 years. I'm a much older player and really have no interest in Steam. (Side rant:Really rather sad that the gaming industry went in this direction.) But if the Numbers are falling below 10K players that is Not a good sign and Firaxis needs to get moving if they want to save BE imho.

I started 5 games I have yet to "want to" finish any of them. I've not touched the game in over a week. I'm disenchanted and jaundiced long time Civ'er who Pre-ordered because it was supposed to be Civ in Space. It's too shallow a game to be called Civ in any shape or form. This could be the death knell of Civ as I know and love. And I hope Sid and company notice.

JosEPh

Lets not get too melodramatic. It's was a different design team from the regular civ team, led by some less experienced folks. Will Miller and David McDonough will probably be fetching coffees for the lead designers in the foreseeable future, when they're not rocking in the fetal position after seeing some of the fan feedback that is. You can be safe in the knowledge that civ 6 will if anything be better because of how much this one has tanked on release.

 

[Gort]

Lets not get too melodramatic. It's was a different design team from the regular civ team, led by some less experienced folks. Will Miller and David McDonough will probably be fetching coffees for the lead designers in the foreseeable future, when they're not rocking in the fetal position after seeing some of the fan feedback that is. You can be safe in the knowledge that civ 6 will if anything be better because of how much this one has tanked on release.

It's always a different civ team. I don't think they've kept the same lead designer for two civ games in a row. It's clear in this game they've failed to learn the lessons they should have done from the previous game, though.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

It's always a different civ team. I don't think they've kept the same lead designer for two civ games in a row. It's clear in this game they've failed to learn the lessons they should have done from the previous game, though.

well the key part there was the inexperienced part really. These guys hadn't had much experience, only prior leading an indie game design or something? Ed Beach brought in for civ V was a seasoned board game designer from what I can understand. Dennis Shirk had almost a decade of experience as a lead designer before coming on board with firaxis.

So of course there were gunna be shortcomings, the main team that have the majority of the experience from civ 5 development is busy working on number 6, and they've allowed a junior team to experiment with something different. To a certain extent this was kind of inevitable. I'm sure they'll get there with a bit more development and expansions though.

 

[Gort]

Jon Shafer was the lead designer on Civ 5 and he certainly isn't working on Civ 6. Who from the Civ 5 team is working on Civ 6?

 

[Sherlock]

6000 peak today? That's terrible. This game looks to be dying. They'd better release a patch before it's buried. Yikes!

Yeah, this makes me wonder if this game will be abandoned so they can move onto CiVI, a sure money-maker.

I keep reading comments about 'how the game will be after some DLC and a few expansions'.... but who says that will happen?

Might make more financial sense for Firaxis to move onto another fifty-buck game.....

 

[a space oddity]

Yeah, this makes me wonder if this game will be abandoned so they can move onto CiVI, a sure money-maker.

I keep reading comments about 'how the game will be after some DLC and a few expansions'.... but who says that will happen?

Might make more financial sense for Firaxis to move onto another fifty-buck game.....

Today 11,813 players, and this when a patch is imminent. That is place 25 of all the games in the Steam library, so don't be too quick to write it off.

 

[Sherlock]

Today 11,813 players, and this when a patch is imminent. That is place 25 of all the games in the Steam library, so don't be too quick to write it off.

I'd be real happy if it got the 'G&K, BNW' treatment.

But not buying it till it does.

 

[Hail]

on steam, until december 2, civ5 is 50% off and civ:be is 16% off.

what shall a gamer buy?
a full game with overwhelmingly positive reviews for like $10
or
a civ5's mod game with overwhelmingly negative reviews for two and a half times (for the RU zone) as much?

edit:
in the us zone, civ5 complete costs $25 and civ:be costs $42, until december 2. wow!

I'm completely baffled by 2k's marketing.

the patch will create a peak of about +40% to the player base on patch day. releasing the patch on friday shall push the peak even higher. the rate of the fall-off will depend on the patch's quality.

Considering that civ4:col did not receive any DLC or expansion packs, in other words, had a short lifecycle, I expect something similar from civ:be

 

[player1 fanatic]

Interesting that Civ5, some time after release, was floating around 15k users, while now it has more then double of that.

It is not strange that BtE has 10k now, SciFi Civ is less mainstream then historical Civ, and both games have/had problems after release.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

It's way too early to draw conclusions from those "trends". Lets see how this goes after some patches. BE will never get as large a player base as CiV because of it's SciFi setting. This does not mean it' not viable. It's currently fluctuating between rank 25 and 30. Not bad for a dying game.

Now, if everyone would stop posting everywhere how much this game "suxxor big timez" and started making constructive comments that would greatly increase the likeliness of the game actually being improved.

Fortunately there are such constructive people here. I just hope those who simply hate this game because it's not Civ6 move to something different while waiting for Civ6. SciFi is not for everyone but it looks like lots of players bought BE even thought they don't like SciFi, and then they didn't like the game and had to tell everyone how bad it is.

The game does have flaws, but what game don't have flaws on initial release. Let's see how it goes after a few patches, and let's hope we'll get an expansion that really makes it better. If not, we still have mods (hope they release the dll source sooner than they did for Civ5)

 

[JosEPh_II]

It's way too early to draw conclusions from those "trends". Lets see how this goes after some patches. BE will never get as large a player base as CiV because of it's SciFi setting. This does not mean it' not viable. It's currently fluctuating between rank 25 and 30. Not bad for a dying game.

Now, if everyone would stop posting everywhere how much this game "suxxor big timez" and started making constructive comments that would greatly increase the likeliness of the game actually being improved.

Fortunately there are such constructive people here. I just hope those who simply hate this game because it's not Civ6 move to something different while waiting for Civ6. SciFi is not for everyone but it looks like lots of players bought BE even thought they don't like SciFi, and then they didn't like the game and had to tell everyone how bad it is.

The game does have flaws, but what game don't have flaws on initial release. Let's see how it goes after a few patches, and let's hope we'll get an expansion that really makes it better. If not, we still have mods (hope they release the dll source sooner than they did for Civ5)

Bunk!

I bought it because I Love Sci-Fi and Sid did such a great job of it with SMAC and it's expansion. I don't play regular Civ (for me Civ II thru Civ IV BtS, all expansions included) for "historical reasons" nor do most of the ppl I know. (Nor do I own any CiV iterations thanks to Steam) So to say it's diminished because it's not "historical" is a tunnel vision statement. Why even the All-Time leading Mod for Any Civ iteration is a Fantasy Mod for BtS, FFH. Historical play players are as much a niche as the Sci-Fi segment. Ppl bought it because it's Civ and Sid's name is on it. Leave it at that.

Give BE some depth at play and it will rebound. Keep it shallow and it will taper off and it will become a sidenote.

JosEPh

 

[SupremacyKing2]

what shall a gamer buy?
a full game with overwhelmingly positive reviews for like $10
or
a civ5's mod game with overwhelmingly negative reviews for two and a half times (for the RU zone) as much?

Similarly, Endless Space + Disharmony DLC is on sale for $6.99. I could not pass that up. I actually feel guilty paying so little because the game is so amazing. I am also really tempted to get Europa Universalis IV too which is on sale right now for only $19.99!! That is a steal for such a good game!

 

[Gort]

Definitely get Europa. That game is amazing.

I got tired of Endless Space after a while, but I definitely got my money's worth out of it.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Definitely get Europa. That game is amazing.

I got tired of Endless Space after a while, but I definitely got my money's worth out of it.

EU IV was on sale yesterday for $9.99 on Steam, $11.24 for EU IV complete. I had it in my cart but didn't pull the trigger. (Got side tracked by the Grandkids being over for the weekend). Gkids 1 , EU IV 0.

JosEPh

 

[Gort]

Ah well, you can always get it in the inevitable Christmas sale.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Bunk!

I bought it because I Love Sci-Fi

I bought it despite the negative comments much earlier than i bought Civ5 (as a pack with G&K and all DLCs) for exactly the same reason.
That does not mean we are in the majority

Ppl bought it because it's Civ and Sid's name is on it.

And then complain that it's not as immersive because scifi setting is less immersive than historical. I've read several such comments.

 

[rastak]

Definitely get Europa. That game is amazing.

I got tired of Endless Space after a while, but I definitely got my money's worth out of it.

You must be kidding. That province by province grind that's almost the same everytime looks like it would pretty much make me want to cry. I'm not sure why I bought it cheap on steam....I haven't been a big fan of the series since EU I and that was because it was a bit different and reminded me of Medieval Lords from the 80's.

Ultimately, I find the series fairly dull......grind grind grind.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Funny how this talk about EU is relevant to the BE discussion. Different people like different games and that's fine, there are enough games out there to please everyone. However i really think there have been a lot of people who bought BE and shouldn't have and that's part of the reason for the huge peak at launch and big drop after.

Part of the reason is also that the game does have issues. But it's not as bad as some people tend to say and i keep hopes that it will get better with a few patches, and hopefully even better with an expansion

 

[Gort]

You must be kidding. That province by province grind that's almost the same everytime looks like it would pretty much make me want to cry. I'm not sure why I bought it cheap on steam....I haven't been a big fan of the series since EU I and that was because it was a bit different and reminded me of Medieval Lords from the 80's.

Ultimately, I find the series fairly dull......grind grind grind.

Sorry you don't enjoy it. I do, and it scores high on metacritic, so it's likely many others do too.

 

[misesfan]

Sorry you don't enjoy it. I do, and it scores high on metacritic, so it's likely many others do too.

lol... Game critics are pretty much worthless nowadays. So, it is interesting to note the difference in scores between users and game critics on Metacritic. For Beyond Earth, the critics gave it a healthy 81 average score. (BTW - one of my favorite critics, Tom Chick gave it 2 stars out of 5) The users gave it a 5.6.

In this case, the users are right - the game is a 56%. or 5.6 or two stars out five, or whatever. It is definitely not a game that I want to do one more turnin...

And frankly, I dont think they can patch the design issues with the game.