The End Of An Era, And A Franchise

[taomastercu]

Ding dong the king is dead. Or is Civ 7 the witch?

We are finally at the point where we can say that even if you consider console numbers Civ 7 was a major flop.

It appears, though things could change, that civ 7 will not break 100k concurrent users, probably due to the advanced access split. But even if we pretended that the advanced access players and the regular release players are all totally separate people and added their numbers up we wouldn't see the peak that Civ 6 reached in late 2016. And even if you consider console players that still makes the game a dud.

Reviews are holding steady at 51%. Reviews on console are as bad or worse and also trending down.

The devs of Civ 7 made many major bad decisions. Worst of all of course is rejecting the use of nested tooltips. They hardcore strategy nerds and streamers would have forgiven everything if not for that, even if the casuals didn't care. I won't dig into all the other stuff since it has been argued to death, except to say that people whining about Tubman or Amina instead of actual gameplay and UI issues are losers. Grow up.

Like many long time Civ players and strategy nerds I am devastated.

RIP Sid Meier's Civilization (1991-2025)

[The Ludovico Technique]

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

As of writing this reply there are currently 84k players in-game on Civ7 right now so I wouldn't call that a major flop by any stretch.

Which means that there are hundreds of thousands of other gamers that aren't playing this.

[joutsenlaulu]

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

Also when I look on steamcharts.com it shows that Civ6 had 162k back in October 2016 but then in December 2016 it dropped to 41k because Civ6 was not always the game it is today.

All games go to decline after the first week. For Civ 7 numbers improve only and if Firaxis releases Atomic Era DLC that is supposed to add the missing 4th era.

There are rumours that 2K forced Firaxis to rush Civ 7 out 6 months early and the 4th era was cut.

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by COCA CHLOE:

Well I bought the game on EPIC and there is also console.

If STEAM alone right now is showing 80,000 players than that means the concurrent number of players is well above 100K.

STEAM only shows STEAM players - not all players.

The Epic player score is 3.6. That's garbage. Certainly not enough to save the series given the sales volume on Epic.

[Kettlebloke]

Originally posted by The Ludovico Technique:

Which means that there are hundreds of thousands of other gamers that aren't playing this.

This is clearly a troll but sure lets just address this. There are currently 32million players on steam right now. The most played game is CS2 with 1.2mil... so hundreds of millions of people are not playing CS so by your logic that must be a flop

Originally posted by CaractacusRex:

I don't know what the pay is for a developer, but I'm going to assume that average pay is about $40,000 a year. Feel free to correct me or tell me that figure is way off.
Civ 7 has been in production since 2021 at least, which is when voice actors were being contracted.

So 40,000 x 240 x 4 = $38,400,000 rough estimate development cost just on staff alone. That's about £30.5 million. So if Civ 7 has currently only sold £5 million, 30% of which goes to the platforms, it's only currently made back about 1/10th of its development budget.

Well firstly I was being super generous with not counting the higher priced game and not including console sales but fair play lets still run with that and work of this $38mil.

Its only been out for fours days (nine days if you include early access) based on that $38mil they would have had to sell 633,438 copies( based on US pricing of £69.99). Its gonna take some time for that to happen... unless you are Black Myth Wukong.

Originally posted by joutsenlaulu:

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

Also when I look on steamcharts.com it shows that Civ6 had 162k back in October 2016 but then in December 2016 it dropped to 41k because Civ6 was not always the game it is today.

All games go to decline after the first week. For Civ 7 numbers improve only and if Firaxis releases Atomic Era DLC that is supposed to add the missing 4th era.

There are rumours that 2K forced Firaxis to rush Civ 7 out 6 months early and the 4th era was cut.

I could believe that for sure.

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

Originally posted by The Ludovico Technique:

Which means that there are hundreds of thousands of other gamers that aren't playing this.

This is clearly a troll but sure lets just address this. There are currently 32million players on steam right now. The most played game is CS2 with 1.2mil... so hundreds of millions of people are not playing CS so by your logic that must be a flop

Originally posted by CaractacusRex:

I don't know what the pay is for a developer, but I'm going to assume that average pay is about $40,000 a year. Feel free to correct me or tell me that figure is way off.
Civ 7 has been in production since 2021 at least, which is when voice actors were being contracted.

So 40,000 x 240 x 4 = $38,400,000 rough estimate development cost just on staff alone. That's about £30.5 million. So if Civ 7 has currently only sold £5 million, 30% of which goes to the platforms, it's only currently made back about 1/10th of its development budget.

Well firstly I was being super generous with not counting the higher priced game and not including console sales but fair play lets still run with that and work of this $38mil.

Its only been out for fours days (nine days if you include early access) based on that $38mil they would have had to sell 633,438 copies( based on US pricing of £69.99). Its gonna take some time for that to happen... unless you are Black Myth Wukong.

Originally posted by joutsenlaulu:

All games go to decline after the first week. For Civ 7 numbers improve only and if Firaxis releases Atomic Era DLC that is supposed to add the missing 4th era.

There are rumours that 2K forced Firaxis to rush Civ 7 out 6 months early and the 4th era was cut.

I could believe that for sure.

Civ 7 cost over $100,000,000 to develop so...

[Xenomorph Kitty]

What's funny is that Beyond Earth had higher peak players. It's older, sure, but has about the same amount of reviews as Civ7 yet has higher rating.

[joutsenlaulu]

Originally posted by CaractacusRex:

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

So I have seen a lot of bait in the forums lately but it would seem that the OP is a genuine strategy enjoyer.

As of writing this reply there are currently 84k players in-game on Civ7 right now so I wouldn't call that a major flop by any stretch. If you only counted the online players, didn't count any of the higher (and over priced) bundles and just used the base game price thats still: 84,000 x £59.99 = £5,0391,60 and according the google the dev team is about 240 people. Pretty decent for a AA game that only released four days ago.

I don't know what the pay is for a developer, but I'm going to assume that average pay is about $40,000 a year. Feel free to correct me or tell me that figure is way off.
Civ 7 has been in production since 2021 at least, which is when voice actors were being contracted.

So 40,000 x 240 x 4 = $38,400,000 rough estimate development cost just on staff alone. That's about £30.5 million.

So if Civ 7 has currently only sold £5 million, 30% of which goes to the platforms, it's only currently made back about 1/10th of its development budget.

I think $40,000 is a very low salary for a developer. Double that and also count in other costs like insurance, health care etc. On the other hand, voice actors etc were contracted only for few days or weeks.

Currently it is estimated that the games has sold at least 600-700k copies.

[Kettlebloke]

Originally posted by taomastercu:

Civ 7 cost over $100,000,000 to develop so...

What are you talking about. The is no public available info about Civ7's dev cost. Feel free to share the source. Although I'm pretty confident you can't but I am prepared to eat my words.

Originally posted by joutsenlaulu:

Currently it is estimated that the games has sold at least 600-700k copies.

The only thing I saw is the publisher disclosed that Civ7 had the most pre-orders compared the the previous CIV titles (the fact people pre-order digital games baffles me)

[DadouXIII]

Why is it always the same people remaking the same posts every day??

[Greymantle]

I sure wish I had some of that major flop money. :)

[The Ludovico Technique]

Originally posted by Kettlebloke:

Originally posted by The Ludovico Technique:

Which means that there are hundreds of thousands of other gamers that aren't playing this.

This is clearly a troll but sure lets just address this. There are currently 32million players on steam right now. The most played game is CS2 with 1.2mil... so hundreds of millions of people are not playing CS so by your logic that must be a flop


Well firstly I was being super generous with not counting the higher priced game and not including console sales but fair play lets still run with that and work of this $38mil.

Its only been out for four days

It isn't a troll. I'm making this point for perspective. You said it yourself, the game has been out for four days. A highly anticipated AAA game in a series that has existed for over 20 years should be putting up at least DOUBLE these in-game numbers.

I'm starting to suspect that you're a paid influencer. No one wanted the Ages game model. It's mind boggling that anyone at Firaxis thought that this was a good idea. Throw in questionable leader choices, the excessive DLCs, and it's little wonder why this game was DOA.

[Darkboss]

Originally posted by Inkidu:

The metacritic critic score is good, the user score is being bombed by really crap reviews. Steam is mixed like every Civ game at launch. You want the game to be bad so you're molding all the evidence to fit your narrative.

Critics sell their reviews. The same happened with Dragon Age Veilguard

Player reviews are generally correct

If you dont trust reviews, Civ 7 peak concurrent players is on the levels of Civ: Beyond Earth and, again, Dragon Age Veilguard

You have to be completely blind to not the the failure that is Civ 7

Critics and streamers that sold their reviews need to start losing trust by the playerbase if we want that to end

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Darkboss:

Originally posted by Inkidu:

The metacritic critic score is good, the user score is being bombed by really crap reviews. Steam is mixed like every Civ game at launch. You want the game to be bad so you're molding all the evidence to fit your narrative.

Critics sell their reviews. The same happened with Dragon Age Veilguard

Player reviews are generally correct

If you dont trust reviews, Civ 7 peak concurrent players is on the levels of Civ: Beyond Earth and, again, Dragon Age Veilguard

You have to be completely blind to not the the failure that is Civ 7

Critics and streamers that sold their reviews need to start losing trust by the playerbase if we want that to end

80, probably soon to be 79, is also the worst Civ metacritic score by a long way. People who can't accept facts will just pretend not to see them.

The game had some good ideas but it balanced them out with some real stinkers and then overcharged.

[Darkboss]

Originally posted by taomastercu:

Originally posted by Darkboss:

Critics sell their reviews. The same happened with Dragon Age Veilguard

Player reviews are generally correct

If you dont trust reviews, Civ 7 peak concurrent players is on the levels of Civ: Beyond Earth and, again, Dragon Age Veilguard

You have to be completely blind to not the the failure that is Civ 7

Critics and streamers that sold their reviews need to start losing trust by the playerbase if we want that to end

80, probably soon to be 79, is also the worst Civ metacritic score by a long way. People who can't accept facts will just pretend not to see them.

The game had some good ideas but it balanced them out with some real stinkers and then overcharged.

No one that really played this game should have given it anything close to 80

The reviews are clearly not honest

[MagicHp]

Originally posted by taomastercu:

Like many long time Civ players and strategy nerds I am devastated.

Played Civ 1 on release, and every numbered sequel of course since then, and from what you wrote repeatedly those past few days in this very forum I also played a lot more Strategy and 4X games than you did.

I am enjoying this game a lot and knowing that it will only get better with future updates and DLC just like every other Civ is even nicer.

Maybe you're just "nerding" a bit too much here... Or just trolling through your 50+ messages in the last 24 hours, who knows? ;)