Just wondering what has been the most successful of the series?
What was the best selling Civ Game?
- Thread starter Aiken_Drumn
- Start date
- Status
Vandlys
King
Out of my own interest, why don't you do any research or say you did research? I don't think anyone has the facts and figures at the ready, so they would need to look it up.
For the first four entries, 2 minutes on wikipedia gave me some ideas. Why don't you go check there and see if you can find something out for us?
This is research. 
I am sure there is many out there more knowledgeable than I, so why not use that resource
I am sure there is many out there more knowledgeable than I, so why not use that resource
Civ6 for sure. Games before Civ5 don't compare, while the Civ franchise pre-Civ5 was one of the most successful ones out there, that's still before the gaming market exploded. Civ2 for instance was a huge success commercially, but it took about two years to sell a million copies - that's not even close to the rate at which modern titles sell.
Not long before Civ6 was released, the quoted number was 33 million sales for the franchise, including 8 million for Civ5. Then Civ6 became the fastest-ever seller, it took less than a month to sell a million copies, and was confirmed to have sold 5.5 million copies in mid-2019. Last year, the franchise sales were put at 51 million. Take-Two was already saying in 2019 that Civ6 is on track to surpass Civ5.
We don't have explicit confirmation, and Take-Two/2K don't often release those figures, but unless the balance of new sales shifted massively towards Civ5 in the last two years, then Civ6 is the top seller. A shift towards Civ5 seems very unlikely, given the release of Civ6 NFP and releases like the Civ6 Anthology.
Not long before Civ6 was released, the quoted number was 33 million sales for the franchise, including 8 million for Civ5. Then Civ6 became the fastest-ever seller, it took less than a month to sell a million copies, and was confirmed to have sold 5.5 million copies in mid-2019. Last year, the franchise sales were put at 51 million. Take-Two was already saying in 2019 that Civ6 is on track to surpass Civ5.
We don't have explicit confirmation, and Take-Two/2K don't often release those figures, but unless the balance of new sales shifted massively towards Civ5 in the last two years, then Civ6 is the top seller. A shift towards Civ5 seems very unlikely, given the release of Civ6 NFP and releases like the Civ6 Anthology.
Different times, different audiences.
For one, forums themselves are now a niche medium. I used to be one of the people running Apolyton, the biggest Civ forum, bigger than CFC back in the Civ3/4 days, and the amount of activity was huge, certainly comparable to CFC's activity for Civ5. But the world seems to largely have moved on from forums. Now it's Facebook, it's Reddit, and then there was Discord, the final nail in the coffin. Civ5 was released in the last years of forums still being popular, by the time Civ6 was released everything changed - all the smaller forums died, and the big ones dropped in traffic.
And the great increase in sales largely comes thanks to people who are more casual about them. I'm sure the proportion of casual Civ6 players is greater than for Civ5, and greater for Civ5 than for Civ4. The casual players are ones that, by definition, will play the game and have fun with it but not spend hours figuring out the details of war weariness or arguing about whether Oman or Burma should be the next culture added. If the casual player wants to ask a question about the game, they'll turn to whatever is the most accessible platform, and per the first point, that's certainly not forums now.
For one, forums themselves are now a niche medium. I used to be one of the people running Apolyton, the biggest Civ forum, bigger than CFC back in the Civ3/4 days, and the amount of activity was huge, certainly comparable to CFC's activity for Civ5. But the world seems to largely have moved on from forums. Now it's Facebook, it's Reddit, and then there was Discord, the final nail in the coffin. Civ5 was released in the last years of forums still being popular, by the time Civ6 was released everything changed - all the smaller forums died, and the big ones dropped in traffic.
And the great increase in sales largely comes thanks to people who are more casual about them. I'm sure the proportion of casual Civ6 players is greater than for Civ5, and greater for Civ5 than for Civ4. The casual players are ones that, by definition, will play the game and have fun with it but not spend hours figuring out the details of war weariness or arguing about whether Oman or Burma should be the next culture added. If the casual player wants to ask a question about the game, they'll turn to whatever is the most accessible platform, and per the first point, that's certainly not forums now.
MrRadar
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2,297
This Steam achievement is awarded to anyone who reaches the victory screen on any difficulty.
You see than less than half of the playerbase cared to do so at least once. The percentages for finer points quickly drop to single digit numbers before the decimal point. People who become invested enough to start discussing things on the forums are a fraction of the total buyer population. Sales expanded massively on account of the so called casual players who may pick up the nice looking game during one of the numerous sales, have a go or two at it and never come back again.
You see than less than half of the playerbase cared to do so at least once. The percentages for finer points quickly drop to single digit numbers before the decimal point. People who become invested enough to start discussing things on the forums are a fraction of the total buyer population. Sales expanded massively on account of the so called casual players who may pick up the nice looking game during one of the numerous sales, have a go or two at it and never come back again.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2017
- Messages
- 4,166
This Steam achievement is awarded to anyone who reaches the victory screen on any difficulty.
You see than less than half of the playerbase cared to do so at least once. The percentages for finer points quickly drop to single digit numbers before the decimal point. People who become invested enough to start discussing things on the forums are a fraction of the total buyer population. Sales expanded massively on account of the so called casual players who may pick up the nice looking game during one of the numerous sales, have a go or two at it and never come back again.
I get the point you’re trying to make but Civ 6 is on more platforms than most games: switch, PlayStation, Xbox, android, iOS, epic. Steam is but one platform people are playing the game on and I wouldn’t make big judgments about the players from their statistics.
for instance, the civilization Discord server is very active; probably more than half of the regulars are
on console editions.
AntSou
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2019
- Messages
- 3,051
This Steam achievement is awarded to anyone who reaches the victory screen on any difficulty.
You see than less than half of the playerbase cared to do so at least once. The percentages for finer points quickly drop to single digit numbers before the decimal point. People who become invested enough to start discussing things on the forums are a fraction of the total buyer population. Sales expanded massively on account of the so called casual players who may pick up the nice looking game during one of the numerous sales, have a go or two at it and never come back again.
True, but one would expect the percentage of non-casuals to be identical regardless of whether you have a couple million more (or less) copies sold. So more sales should still translate into more forum traffic.
What's happening is what Solver already pointed out, imo. Forums are no longer the go to for most players. Reddit gobbled up a ton of potential forum members.
MrRadar
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2,297
Yes, of course. But if you want PS4 statistics, the 'Game, Settler, Match' achievement currently shows for 26.9 % players and is rated 'Rare'.
I disagree with that assumption. I think the hardcore players are over-represented among the initial sales, and it's more of a long-tail distribution, with total sales going on the X axis and the amount of hardcore buyers on the Y. So - numbers pulled out of thin air - if there's 100k hardcore civ players, I would expect that the first million sales includes 50k of them, and the other 50k are spread out over the next few million sales. But this is speculation on my part, I can't show any good evidence.
We did recently some number crunching on this for the "General Discussion" forums, and you actually cannot generalize that there was less attention for Civ6 than for Civ5 or Civ4. Based on the stats, in some months there were statistically significantly more posts in Civ6 threads in comparison to Civ5 threads at the same time. The overall rate of threads seems to be somewhat lower, but not out of the ordinary (besides at the release, but not following).
The main issue right now: It's been 6 years. It's time again.
The issue with Reddit and Facebook seems to more affect our off-topic area though, where number of threads have been continously dropping since Facebook started, but less the ontopic areas. Which I guess makes sense, since you can have conversations about anything anywhere, but Civ there's the hub here.
We have not checked other subforums (since this takes a while to do), so can't comment more on this.
Aristos
Lightseeker
I would love to see true Civ 4 sales numbers over time, but I guess that will never happen. I am not so sure the latest iterations are truly the best sellers... they have the most precise numbers, for sure, thanks to digital platforms... but we will never know.
AntSou
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2019
- Messages
- 3,051
I would be surprised to see Civ IV beat either Civ V or VI. If for nothing else, video games have become more popular since 2005 as a form of entertainment. That's a tough trend to beat (although tbf mobile gaming plays the biggest role in that trend. I'm making the assumption pc gaming has also increased in popularity and strategy games by extension).
I can attest to the change in attitude about forums and other media. I was late to the party in acquiring Civ6, so I went to the CFC forums where I had learned so much about Civ 3, 4, 5. So few strategy articles, compared to the others. But the YouTube videos! Clearly, that was where the center of gravity for sharing had moved. YouTube was born in the late 2000's, and took off with smart phones in the 2010s.
Whenever Civ 7 comes out, I expect that other communication channels will dominate not only fan sites like this one.
Whenever Civ 7 comes out, I expect that other communication channels will dominate not only fan sites like this one.
aieeegrunt
Emperor
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2021
- Messages
- 1,539
I would be absolutly shocked if Civ6 didn’t have the best sales numbers, it’s on multiple platforms and it is designed for mass appeal
Yep, it's not even close. Civ4 and Civ5 are only five years apart, 2005 vs 2010, but a ton happened to the industry in those years. Some of the trends were bad themselves - Facebook games designed for addictive microtransactions - but the market changed completely. In 2010, 5.8 billion USD (!) came from various digital sales, so copies of games, subscriptions, microtransactions, etc. In 2005, the entire industry was 10.5 billion in the US, and that's with hardware included, like all the Xbox sales. Retail sales in 2005 were a bit under 1 billion USD, not counting the then-new digital sales and subscriptions, but even if you generously add another 500 million for subscriptions, that would mean total game sales in 2005 were a quarter of digital sales in 2010.
Civ4 took half a year to sell a million copies, and it was a major success (the entire franchise had sold 6 million as of Civ4's release). For Civ5, that kind of sales pace would have been a franchise-endangering failure. For Civ6, we know it sold the first million within 20 days. Civ5 celebrated 10 million copies in 2017, and Civ6 has certainly passed that by now, bolstered by its multiple platforms. There is absolutely no chance Civ4 sales come close.
For numbers see here https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-more-than-51-million-units-worldwide.665934/ . 51 million of all Civs sold last year, with at least 8 Civ5, probably 14+ for Civ6.
Numbers overall a bit fuzzy, since it leaves 25 million for the first 4 titles of the franchise, but it's unclear if addons are counted separately... or well... overall intentionally unclear from 2K.
Numbers overall a bit fuzzy, since it leaves 25 million for the first 4 titles of the franchise, but it's unclear if addons are counted separately... or well... overall intentionally unclear from 2K.
Woah, it is amazing to think how this "hobby" has exploded from when the original game came out. Exciting to have so many new players
- Status
Similar threads
