Steam Analysis

[Charriu]

The folks at Extra Credits did an analysis about games on steam and found something interesting about Civilization (At 2:47):

[Dark Savant]

The folks at Extra Credits did an analysis about games on steam and found something interesting about Civilization (At 2:47):

Well, we haven't had Steam for that long.

Also, if you go back far enough, the industry was still exponentially growing and the Internet wasn't the power it is now, so even a terrible sequel would sell
much better.

You wouldn't know it on RB, but people really love Civ 5, when we play mostly 4 and 6 here.

[Bacchus]

People really love Clash of Clans.

[Fluffball]

The folks at Extra Credits did an analysis about games on steam and found something interesting about Civilization (At 2:47):

Well, we haven't had Steam for that long.

Also, if you go back far enough, the industry was still exponentially growing and the Internet wasn't the power it is now, so even a terrible sequel would sell
much better.

You wouldn't know it on RB, but people really love Civ 5, when we play mostly 4 and 6 here.  

We seem to not be the target demographic for Civ 5. I think most of us would prefer a complicated, ugly game with good gameplay than a pretty, overly simplified game. Civ 5 is lovely, and that's about the only good thing I can say about it. 

[HansLemurson]

Civ5 also mandates a small number of cities, which is comforting to beginner players.  When I've introduced my friends to Civ in the past, they would always suffer in strength for building too few cities.  Once they had "enough" they were content with them, and liked to just grow and develop them to their heart's content, with no hunger for the open land next door and annoyed disbelief when the AIs eventually filled in and settled on their border. "Why do they have to be so expansionistic?"

So Civ5 is a game that caters to this mode of play, and thus will attract and keep the more casual crowd.  Also it's pretty.  (Too pretty for my pesky integrated GPU...)

But yes, it's an interesting question for how you judge newer games compared to older games when the marketplace has grown exponentially.

[LKendter]

I am posting a SMAC at RB right now.
Also tempted to do the alien crossfire expansion to SMAC.
Still running an out of date Civ3 SG at Civ Fanatics with CCM module and an insane 32 civs.
Some point I want to go back and complete more of the Civ4 epics / adventures.
I plan to run LK plays Civ6 in small blocks to try and finally understand that one.

Civ5 won't make this long list...

[LKendter]

Been stuck for a bit, some year I want to complete back to Wasteland 1. Ancient DOS version, and still having fun.

Given the choice of pretty, or ugly and fun, I will take ugly PC stuff anyday of the week.

[GreyWolf]

There are different kinds of "ugly" and "pretty"... Civ1, IMO, is quite nice and pleasant-looking, but Civ2 is just a bit too ugly.

The ugliest civ spin-off is probably C-evo. Never managed to even start getting into it, the aesthetics are just that off-putting.

And yeah, the Civilization reddit, for instance, is full of people playing Civ5, posting Civ5 memes, etc, and these are players who are dedicated enough to post about the game on Reddit. Civ4 and previous civs get mentioned very, very rarely.

[TheArchduke]

Scary. Although I did get the appeal of CIV V and thought it was underrated on RB especially in MP.

[T-hawk]

Steam stats aren't the best comparison, since Civ 4 came to Steam only late in its lifecycle, so many installed copies (like mine) don't register on the platform.

This says Civ 5 sold 8 million to Civ 4's 3 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_be...g_PC_games

Civ 6 hasn't caught up yet (that list doesn't include it; its own article says 2 million as of spring 2017), but it may, the Civ games have always sold well on a long tail compared to each latest quickly-superseded iteration of an FPS or sports franchise.