Steam Review Bombing

[TheGrayFox]

Hi there. Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm sure you understand I can't answer that.

Well if you ever bump shoulders with Soren in the breakroom or zoom meeting, please let him know we want the king to come take back his throne.

 

[Dale]

Well if you ever bump shoulders with Soren in the breakroom or zoom meeting, please let him know we want the king to come take back his throne.

All I can really say is give Old World a look. We're still actively improving it.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Well if you ever bump shoulders with Soren in the breakroom or zoom meeting, please let him know we want the king to come take back his throne.

Old World praise is a good start.
It's a really good game, though has it's quirks.

 

[Jeppetto]

I believe both of you misunderstood me. My point is people are upset because they paid a premium price (pretty much at the top price asked for PC games depending on locality) for a product they feel does not meet that price at all.

I understood perfectly. I can only repeat myself, that price is for extra content and dlcs yet to be released - how could that be subpar when they didnt even see it yet. The base game itself is not that 'premium' priced for high-profile high-budget title. And it's justified price for 30 civs with such level of uniqueness. People completely ignore many aspects of the game just to portray it as subpar. It's lacking but to imply it should be 20 € (Tier lower than the circa 40-50€ price it has) is disrespectful to the historical researchers and artists alone.

 

[TheGrayFox]

All I can really say is give Old World a look. We're still actively improving it.

Literally playing as we speak

I understood perfectly. I can only repeat myself, that price is for extra content and dlcs yet to be released - how could that be subpar when they didnt even see it yet. The base game itself is not that 'premium' priced for high-profile high-budget title. And it's justified price for 30 civs with such level of uniqueness. People completely ignore many aspects of the game just to portray it as subpar. It's lacking but to imply it should be 20 € (Tier lower than the circa 40-50€ price it has) is disrespectful to the historical researchers and artists alone.

No one is ignoring the many aspects of the game, they just think its sum of its parts are all subpar and underbaked you're unwilling to accept their conclusion

The base game is $70-80 (which is premium high budget AAA price) and the extra content and DLC are all exuberently priced and many reviews are giving their opinion that the game is not worth that price for the current state got.

 

[Big J Money]

Most negative reviews are along the lines of "the mechanics are great, but you can't get past how bad the UI is". I don't see review bombing, I see bad UI getting called out.

It's definitely getting review bombed. You can tell by the steam awards. Every top negative review has an inordinant amount of "Take my points" awards, and the positive reviews have an inordinant number of "Jester" awards. Games that aren't getting review bombed have a more reasonable curve when it comes to awards. i.e. Reviews that actually say ridiculous things get a high number of Jester awards, and take my points is rarely one of the top awards given to good reviewers. A lot of Jesters is essentially a sign of meb mentality reactions.

 

[Jeppetto]

Literally playing as we speak



No one is ignoring the many aspects of the game, they just think its sum of its parts are all subpar and underbaked you're unwilling to accept their conclusion

The base game is $80 (which is premium high budget AAA price) and the extra content and DLC are all exuberently priced and many reviews are giving their opinion that the game is not worth that price for the current state got.

Yeah I looked at wrong site, it hovers around 60 - 70 € - that is still quite typical price after inflation, and I still stand by the amount of detail in art justifying it. I am not arguing against those who left bad review If they don't have fun playing with it, I just think the price for the Base Game of such high-budget project in current day is not as overblown as described.

 

[AD1730]

It's definitely getting review bombed. You can tell by the steam awards. Every top negative review has an inordinant amount of "Take my points" awards, and the positive reviews have an inordinant number of "Jester" awards. Games that aren't getting review bombed have a more reasonable curve when it comes to awards. i.e. Reviews that actually say ridiculous things get a high number of Jester awards, and take my points is rarely one of the top awards given to good reviewers. A lot of Jesters is essentially a sign of meb mentality reactions.

Depends on your definition of review bombing. To me, review bombing is when the reviews are primarily about something outside of the quality of the game itself, typically a social/political issue. Perhaps there is some of that, but I'm not seeing most of the negative reviews reflecting that sort of behavior. What I'm seeing is people angry about the quality of the game or people upset about the franchise being taken in a direction they fundamentally disagree with.

 

[Dale]

I understood perfectly. I can only repeat myself, that price is for extra content and dlcs yet to be released - how could that be subpar when they didnt even see it yet. The base game itself is not that 'premium' priced for high-profile high-budget title. And it's justified price for 30 civs with such level of uniqueness. People completely ignore many aspects of the game just to portray it as subpar. It's lacking but to imply it should be 20 € (Tier lower than the circa 40-50€ price it has) is disrespectful to the historical researchers and artists alone.

No it's not. The standard edition price is premium pricing too (at least it is on Australian prices). Here is steam PC games, listed by price. If you ignore the "software" in that list, you can clearly see that on Australian prices, Civ7 is right at the top of premium pricing. The deluxe and founder's prices ($160 & $200) make this analysis even worse. The founder's edition is literally the most expensive PC game in Australian prices.

I also didn't imply it should be $20. I was implying that when you buy something from non-AAA and pay a low price, if it's crap you're not as disappointed as when you buy a AAA title at premium pricing and it's crap.

 

[Jeppetto]

No it's not. The standard edition price is premium pricing too (at least it is on Australian prices). Here is steam PC games, listed by price. If you ignore the "software" in that list, you can clearly see that on Australian prices, Civ7 is right at the top of premium pricing. The deluxe and founder's prices ($160 & $200) make this analysis even worse. The founder's edition is literally the most expensive PC game in Australian prices.

I also didn't imply it should be $20. I was implying that when you buy something from non-AAA and pay a low price, if it's crap you're not as disappointed as when you buy a AAA title at premium pricing and it's crap.

View attachment 718488

Indeed, my apology for looking at the wrong site, my presumption of 20 € as lower price stemmed from that. As I said in the post above as TheGrayFox already corrected my misinformation, I still don't find that price so overblown in relation to the detail the game has. I simply argue against the idea the price is disproportionate, not against people for whom the detail does not compensate lack of fun and leave negative review.

 

[TheGrayFox]

It's definitely getting review bombed. You can tell by the steam awards. Every top negative review has an inordinant amount of "Take my points" awards, and the positive reviews have an inordinant number of "Jester" awards. Games that aren't getting review bombed have a more reasonable curve when it comes to awards. i.e. Reviews that actually say ridiculous things get a high number of Jester awards, and take my points is rarely one of the top awards given to good reviewers. A lot of Jesters is essentially a sign of meb mentality reactions.

it's not getting review bombed. People are just giving their opinions and you disagree with their conclusions. There isn't a conspiracy, the rewards are people showing their opinions. Maybe you'd see less clown rewards if people didn't post takes that a large portion of forum goers and steam users think are clown worthy....

Yeah I looked at wrong site, it hovers around 60 - 70 € - that is still quite typical price after inflation, and I still stand by the amount of detail in art justifying it. I am not arguing against those who left bad review If they don't have fun playing with it, I just think the price for the Base Game of such high-budget project in current day is not as overblown as described.

the base game is $70 USD, which is still AAA premium price for a game... you think VII is worth that price for art and historical research alone (someone should tell those researchers Arabs have no connection to Buganda), many do not think it's worth that asking price because they expected a much better product with quality QOL/UI and the same level of customization and capabilities as previous titles at launch with all those pretty assets. $70 dollars for the base Game of such high-budget project isn't overblown when the game is good and actually worth that amount. Whether you think it's worth the price is completely subjective.

 

[ColtSeavers]

All I can really say is give Old World a look. We're still actively improving it.

Sure, just keep in mind, that after this Civ 7, the chances of success are higher than ever for you guys!

 

[TreVor_ish]

No it's not. The standard edition price is premium pricing too (at least it is on Australian prices). Here is steam PC games, listed by price. If you ignore the "software" in that list, you can clearly see that on Australian prices, Civ7 is right at the top of premium pricing. The deluxe and founder's prices ($160 & $200) make this analysis even worse. The founder's edition is literally the most expensive PC game in Australian prices.

I don't see Kingdom Come Deliverance II on that list.
It was also just released and has a script allegedly longer than Baldur's Gate III. It already sold enough to cover expenses and is well received.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I don't see Kingdom Come Deliverance II on that list.
It was also just released and has a script allegedly longer than Baldur's Gate III. It already sold enough to cover expenses and is well received.

The fact that KCD2 and BG3 are 10 dollars cheaper than Base Civ VII despite having 100+ gigs more content in voice acting, cutscenes, 3d models, motion capturting, etc, etc and are not already offering DLC nearly doubling that price says everything that needs to be said about 2K/Firaxis business model

 

[MasterPaw]

Well I disagree, and I present as evidence: Civ VI. This was designed as a PC game, and later ported. It was stacked full of micro. I had the game on both PC and PS: the UI and QoL were better on PC, that was the best way to play the game, but it worked perfectly well on PS. It was the same game but with a different UI, and it sold very well. So, I do not buy the argument that reduced micro and simplified mechanics in VII are the result of some desire to appeal to a casual console audience. I will accept that current map sizes are limited by Switch hardware; I don't know why they did this though, there is no need. It is perfectly ok to have a reduced version of the game specifically for Switch.

And it is. Switch does not have normal some map

I guess not doing bigger map was because it clashes in some way about exploration balance if some player is stuck in the middle of the old world. Or because they want a half empty new world that is same size as old world.
Or they didn't want too much differences between platforms?

 

[TreVor_ish]

The fact that KCD2 and BG3 are 10 dollars cheaper than Base Civ VII despite having 100+ gigs more content in voice acting, cutscenes, 3d models, motion capturting, etc, etc and are not already offering DLC nearly doubling that price says everything that needs to be said about 2K/Firaxis business model

It's more of a T2 business model.
I would argue that Fxs is a scapegoat in this situation.

These are mostly passionate people that would like to make a good game. But it takes time. And it's not Fxs that decides when to release, it's T2.
Fxs has to prioritize what comes first and that's why we have clunky UI and missing some functionalities.
It's really awesome that they managed to release it on such a broad amount of machines, I'll give them that. It is not a small feat.

Console release is also not a calamity in UI functionality. It does influence it's design, but not missing information or qol.
It does however have an impact on amount of players and map sizes.

Unfortunate CIV cycle will continue. Until most people stop preordering.
I do feel that current state of CIVII is not worth the price tag and is not on my list of recommended games. It will probably change, somewhere during the cycles next stage.

 

[Dale]

I don't see Kingdom Come Deliverance II on that list.
It was also just released and has a script allegedly longer than Baldur's Gate III. It already sold enough to cover expenses and is well received.

KCD2 is $90 AUD. That's why it's not on that list (by price).

 

[Dale]

Indeed, my apology for looking at the wrong site, my presumption of 20 € as lower price stemmed from that. As I said in the post above as TheGrayFox already corrected my misinformation, I still don't find that price so overblown in relation to the detail the game has. I simply argue against the idea the price is disproportionate, not against people for whom the detail does not compensate lack of fun and leave negative review.

Some people see different value in different things. For me, the value is in gameplay and features. Some may see value in visuals and historical information. I'm also not saying the price is disproportionate.

But when the player feels the delivered quality and value (by their metrics) is lower than the price they paid for it, that's where these negative reviews are coming from. And from my reading of the reviews, there is general agreement the game is great, and the visuals are great, but the common element (outside launch crashes) is that the UI/UX is horrible.

 

[bladex1200]

Some people see different value in different things. For me, the value is in gameplay and features. Some may see value in visuals and historical information. I'm also not saying the price is disproportionate.

But when the player feels the delivered quality and value (by their metrics) is lower than the price they paid for it, that's where these negative reviews are coming from. And from my reading of the reviews, there is general agreement the game is great, and the visuals are great, but the common element (outside launch crashes) is that the UI/UX is horrible. For the price paid, and the 20 odd people in the credits listed for UI/UX, I think people are right in expecting better than what was delivered.

Agreed that the UX/UI is appalling for a game that commands such a price tag. Even in a AA or indie game, having a crap UI would likely be cause for complaint (even if ultimately one would be willing to give a positive review accounting for the lack of resourcing, it would still be a valid complaint), but especially in a game with AAA pricing and resourcing for its VA, artists, and employing an active historian as a consultant? Surely with all that budget they could've spent some time refining the absolutely terrible UI

 

[Graethyenne]

The fact that KCD2 and BG3 are 10 dollars cheaper than Base Civ VII despite having 100+ gigs more content in voice acting, cutscenes, 3d models, motion capturting, etc, etc and are not already offering DLC nearly doubling that price says everything that needs to be said about 2K/Firaxis business model

I think it is important to tease out Firaxis from 2k. Because Larien isn't beholden to a publisher, they get to make all of the decisions all of the time. Something that feels like it gets lost in these discussions is that Firaxis is on our side (2K .... well my feelings about publishers are less rosy, 2k is better than Activision or EA at least, but I digress).

Anyhow, my point is just that if Ed and the team at Firaxis had had their druthers the unhappy folks would be a lot less unhappy. I would probably be even happier but I am having a great time already, so it really isn't about me.

Anyhow, cheers!