Just purely by numbers VII is already a failure

[Dr.Acula]

Civilization 6 Release day 142,779 active players (Oct.21 2016)
Civilization 7 Release day 80,103 active players

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of active players for this game will drop rapidly even below Civ 5 numbers (which even to this day are impressive with around 20,000 daily peaks)

Update:
It is the first weekend and we're past the peak for today.

Highest peak Civ 7 will ever reach: 84,558
Highest peak achieved by Civ 6: 162,657

Also: highest peak reached by Civ: Beyond Earth: 86,892

I think we can now talk about Civ 7 being an utter disaster.

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

Civilization 6 Release day 142,779 active players (Oct.21 2016)
Civilization 7 Release day 80,103 active players

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of active players for this game will drop rapidly even below Civ 5 numbers (which even to this day are impressive with around 20,000 daily peaks)

Civ 6 release on a Friday. It peaked at 162314, I think on Saturday. It also didn't have an advanced access period.

Will the numbers for Civ 7 go as high as Civ 6? Probably not. It simul-launched on several platforms.

Will the numbers peak above 80103 on Friday/Saturday, almost certainly.

[Dr.Acula]

Well the peak for Civ 6 was also a couple of days after release with 162,657.
Let's see if Civ 7 can even get past the Civ 5 peak of 91,363.

No matter how you look at it though the current numbers for Civ 7 are not good.

[Mountain Man]

Assuming any of this true, not being as popular as its predecessor does not mean it's a failure. 80,000 active players is a healthy number for any new game. You also have remember that's Steam only and doesn't take into account the Epic store or consoles.

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

Well the peak for Civ 6 was also a couple of days after release with 162,657.
Let's see if Civ 7 can even get past the Civ 5 peak of 91,363.

No matter how you look at it though the current numbers for Civ 7 are not good.

Yes obviously Firaxis would have liked to have higher launch numbers and better reviews.

Personally I am waiting till Monday and if the player count hasn't cracked ~140k and the review score hasn't cracked 60% I'm gonna call it a flop.

I've spoken to a lot of streamers who played Civ almost exclusively and they are furious.

Even the ones who are not angry about the poor state of the game are incredulous.

When they released the Crossroads of the World DLC price on steam yesterday one prominent streamer insisted that couldn't possibly be correct and tabbed out of the game on stream to check. He was basically stunlocked and the stream derailed for a full 5 minutes, with aftershocks lasting until literally the end of the stream, and he said no one should pay $30 for 2 civs 4 leaders, and some wonder models.

Other major streamers have suggested, either in private or sometimes in public, that they might simply go back to Civ 6 or do a couple months of variety content, hoping that the devs would clean up their mess.

There's a big snowstorm in the US midwest and gaming/streaming numbers are going to spike, but potentially not for Civ 7.

[Bigboss PC Faster]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Assuming any of this true, not being as popular as its predecessor does not mean it's a failure. 80,000 active players is a healthy number for any new game.

It's actually 60,000

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Assuming any of this true, not being as popular as its predecessor does not mean it's a failure. 80,000 active players is a healthy number for any new game.

Depends on the budget and the sales expectations of the publisher. 2K is in a bit of a mess right now with several games underperforming and various controversies erupting about their business model.

[Tikigod]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Assuming any of this true, not being as popular as its predecessor does not mean it's a failure. 80,000 active players is a healthy number for any new game.

Very much depends on the operational cost of development and the publisher/owner investment into development that now needs to be repaid in release and DLC revenue before any actual positive revenue is even made.

For a studio the size of Firaxis and the likely amount of funds their owner 2k had to pump into supporting development for so many years.... it's really not great.

Especially when they start to sit down and look at the release reception of the game and player engagement numbers and start to look at their initial post-release DLC revenue stream predictions and adjust their projections to fit more closely to reality.

There are likely a lot of concerns coming from the financial orientated folk that the middle-management types are currently trying to reassure that "Numbers will improve once xxx happens" so that the money deciders don't decide to shorten the projected period the company will continue to expend resources on the title for.

[Qoojo]

if it makes you feel better, ok

[funkyboymonkeyboy]

I only play as my home nation and it is absent to be released as a DLC (Deceptively Leftout Cutcontent) so I won't be among the players.

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Assuming any of this true.

You don't need to assume. You can check the numbers yourself. Look for steamdb on Google and you can see the activity numbers for every game tracked. Don't trust but verify.

Originally posted by Qoojo:

if it makes you feel better, ok

What makes you think It makes me feel better? I'm disappointed with what I've seen related to this game. I was disappointed right when the first gameplay previews dropped and it makes me feel bad that my worries were correct.

Btw. something else to consider:
Civ 7 had a lower release day peak than Civilization: Beyond Earth (86,892).

Beyond Earth was the worst iteration of Civilization I've ever played.

[Anarchy Burger]

You do realize unlike 6 this was released on multiple platforms right?

[dcbobo]

How about that nosedive after those "peak" numbers for Civ 6 heh

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by Anarchy Burger:

You do realize unlike 6 this was released on multiple platforms right?

So are you implying that anyone on the consoles actually cares about Civ? I'd be surprised if you have more than 10k players on all the console platforms combined playing civilization games on them.

Civ 6 was also available on MacOS in Oct 2016 and a couple of months later on Linux. So no real difference there and Linux still has no major relevance in gaming neither to this day.

Originally posted by dcbobo:

How about that nosedive after those "peak" numbers for Civ 6 heh

Civ 5 and 6 both had nose dives after their initial releases and only recovered over time.

We shall see the path Civ 7 takes. It will nose dive. The question is what the peak will be and whether or not it can recover after its inevitable nose dive. Civilization Beyond Earth did a nose dive and NEVER recovered. In fact it flat lined not long after release and even its DLC couldn't revive it.

[joutsenlaulu]

As it seems the game is not doing well on the consoles either. I dont know how many players or how many copies sold, but PS and XBox stores have only 3/5 user rating for the title.

In one reddit threat I saw console players were complaining about the UI. While apparently designed for consoles, it is not well designed for consoles (either).

[Tikigod]

Originally posted by joutsenlaulu:

As it seems the game is not doing well on the consoles either. I dont know how many players or how many copies sold, but PS and XBox stores have only 3/5 user rating for the title.

In one reddit threat I saw console players were complaining about the UI. While apparently designed for consoles, it is not well designed for consoles (either).

Made the observation in another thread recently that based on a screenshot the OP shared that the UI was very much designed to work across PC, consoles and small form touch devices, whilst not really being tailored for any of them.

Seems perhaps that was pretty much spot on the mark.