Another write-off?

[Nnorm]

Although Victoria 3 and Cities: Skylines 2 sold as expected, they turned out to be poorly received games - the latter has fewer players than Cities: Skylines, and when we look at the player count of both games, CS2 simply cannibalized half of the player base of the first one. Lamplighter League cost $22 million, so what will happen with Millennia?

Reviews on professional sites are negative, and on Steam, the game has only 38% being positive(few reviews though),. Some YouTubers who review games post-launch are also calling it a flop. I'll also mention Reddit, where there's another flood of copium, suggesting that everyone who negatively reviews the game is simply wrong and doesn't know how to play it, but I don't take those opinions into account.

It's worth mentioning that even in the demo version, enormous problems with game were apparent, and until gradual changes and reworks are made, the game will flop. I won't even dwell on the ugly graphics because everyone can see how the game looks.

I don't know what's happening at Paradox, but does anyone have control over that? There should be some kind of quality control, oversight, etc., some sort of supervision over what the developer, who receives money to create the game, is doing. I'm just afraid that for further failures of this kind, we'll have to pay with more 'price adjustments due to inflation' to DLCs and games that will happen in the future.

 

[Vinnie1402]

Reviews on professional sites are negative, and on Steam, the game has only 38% being positive(few reviews though),. Some YouTubers who review games post-launch are also calling it a flop. I'll also mention Reddit, where there's another flood of copium, suggesting that everyone who negatively reviews the game is simply wrong and doesn't know how to play it, but I don't take those opinions into account.

I've yet to see a bad review from a YTer. The IGN reviewer literally admitted she didn't know she had to research techs to build better buildings and had to upgrade buildings. It's like playing civ and only building markets in your commercial hub and never building banks or stock exchanges. Skills issues are not game design issues.
Even now the reviews are increasing, an hour ago 31% positive reviews and now 46% positive reviews. You first have to get rid of the wave of negative people. Lots of games have bad reviews on launch, games like Great War Western Front got slaughtered in the Steam Reviews when it was released and now sits at a good 70% positive reviews.

t's worth mentioning that even in the demo version, enormous problems with game were apparent, and until gradual changes and reworks are made, the game will flop.

Gives zero examples but ok, I liked the demo and lots of YouTubers made multiple-hour long videos, like potatomcwhiskey.

Lamplighter League cost $22 million, so what will happen with Millennia?

Lamplighter's league was also cannabilized by people at launch but now sits at a respectable 71% approval on Steam. That's good dude.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Gives zero examples but ok, I liked the demo and lots of YouTubers made multiple-hour long videos, like potatomcwhiskey.

You do tend to do that..... when you're paid to do so by the publisher.

 

[Vinnie1402]

You do tend to do that..... when you're paid to do so.

You simply cannot fake 5 hours-long enthousiasms.
Also the steam positive reviews are increasing, it's just the wave of naysayers you have to skip through. Lots of games like Great War Western Front or the Lamplighters league started out with lots of negative reviews only to end up both with 70% postive rating.
And don't get me started about Cyberpunk that needed some patches to become an absolute masterpiece.
Most positive reviews are of people whom actually played a few hours. Most negative reviews have 10 minutes of gametime present when written.

 

[Nnorm]

I've yet to see a bad review from a YTer. The IGN reviewer literally admitted she didn't know she had to research techs to build better buildings and had to upgrade buildings. It's like playing civ and only building markets in your commercial hub and never building banks or stock exchanges. Skills issues are not game design issues.
Even now the reviews are increasing, an hour ago 31% positive reviews and now 46% positive reviews. You first have to get rid of the wave of negative people. Lots of games have bad reviews on launch, games like Great War Western Front got slaughtered in the Steam Reviews when it was released and now sits at a good 70% positive reviews.

Here you go:

Gives zero examples but ok, I liked the demo and lots of YouTubers made multiple-hour long videos, like potatomcwhiskey.

Why would i? I don't make a review here.

Lamplighter's league was also cannabilized by people at launch but now sits at a respectable 71% approval on Steam. That's good dude.

Cannibalized by people? What?

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

You simply cannot fake 5 hours-long enthousiasms.

Enthusiasm has nothing to do with it.

You cited potatomcwhiskey's several long videos as evidence that the game is good.
I pointed out that he was paid by Paradox to make those videos.

 

[Kongo87]

I've yet to see a bad review from a YTer.

Paid YTers, that if they give a bad review, will never recieve an Early Access ever again

 

[Peace Weaver]

I'm enjoying the game. I think it's the only civ-like game I've seen that even thinks about taking a non-linear or non-deterministic approach to developing your nation.

 

[Potoroo]

You do tend to do that..... when you're paid to do so by the publisher.

JumboPixel, who made the tutorial videos for Millennia, has also made more detailed review videos that he makes clear are not paid content. He's very open about what he sees as its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[sotmh]

I really like JumboPixel's review because it was detailed with a lot of coverage over the good and bad points. After watching it I actually decided to hold off on buying the game for now. It clearly needs more time in the oven to provide promised features and it looks like another game Paradox pushed the developer to release before it was ready just to fit it into the quarterly earnings. If the developer is allowed the time to polish the game properly I think it could be really interesting, so I'll keep my eye on it and hope they get that chance.

 

[AngryHitsuji]

My thought process is, why would I buy Millennia when I could buy Humankind, and why would I buy Humankind when I could just buy Civ.

The IGN reviewer literally admitted she didn't know she had to research techs to build better buildings and had to upgrade buildings.

Whose fault is that if the game doesn't make that obvious?

 

[Xeorm]

My thought process is, why would I buy Millennia when I could buy Humankind, and why would I buy Humankind when I could just buy Civ.

Whose fault is that if the game doesn't make that obvious?

Because the Civ series has become a bloated mess and I can't say I find it fun anymore.

As far as early reviews go, it's impossible to get a good handle on a 4x game in a short amount of time, barring initial issues that present themselves to the player. So I'd expect mostly negative early on and then more positive reviews as people actually play the game and have a positive experience. Initial negative reviews about lack of multiplayer support are valid, but not the whole picture.

 

[Nnorm]

Because the Civ series has become a bloated mess and I can't say I find it fun anymore.

As far as early reviews go, it's impossible to get a good handle on a 4x game in a short amount of time, barring initial issues that present themselves to the player. So I'd expect mostly negative early on and then more positive reviews as people actually play the game and have a positive experience. Initial negative reviews about lack of multiplayer support are valid, but not the whole picture.

But at the same time we have a bunch of newly written positive reviews from people who played the game for 2 or 3 hours.

Regardless the quality of the game, we can extrapolate how many people bought Millennia, from steamdb of how many played after launch, and how many reviews have been written.
That saying, initial player count was 8k, and dropped sharply to 3k. For comparision - Victoria3 had 70k players at launch. I dont know how much money PDX put into Millennia, but its not hard to tell, they wont make money here.

 

[Xeorm]

But at the same time we have a bunch of newly written positive reviews from people who played the game for 2 or 3 hours.

Regardless the quality of the game, we can extrapolate how many people bought Millennia, from steamdb of how many played after launch, and how many reviews have been written.
That saying, initial player count was 8k, and dropped sharply to 3k. For comparision - Victoria3 had 70k players at launch. I dont know how much money PDX put into Millennia, but its not hard to tell, they wont make money here.

It's not even been a full day yet. It's been night in the US for example.

 

[Tullaris]

But at the same time we have a bunch of newly written positive reviews from people who played the game for 2 or 3 hours.

Regardless the quality of the game, we can extrapolate how many people bought Millennia, from steamdb of how many played after launch, and how many reviews have been written.
That saying, initial player count was 8k, and dropped sharply to 3k. For comparision - Victoria3 had 70k players at launch. I dont know how much money PDX put into Millennia, but its not hard to tell, they wont make money here.

Whats your point exactly? Some games succeed, some games fail. I want Paradox to fund games like Millennia, rather than only go for safe formulas.

I've played Millennia and I love it. Civilization 6 bores me enourmously. Millennia truely a breath of fresh air.

Initial player count of 8k is pretty good for a completely new franchise from an unproven developer. If the players stick around they can grow from here.

 

[gela1212]

I dont know how much money PDX put into Millennia, but its not hard to tell, they wont make money here.

Why are you making obviously unknowable assertions? How much money they put into Millennia is in fact the primary variable in determining whether or not they will make money. You can make money on a game that sells 1000 copies if development costs are very low, and you can lose money on a game that sells 100,000 copies if development costs are high.

The relevant question is how it sold compared to expectations. Did PDX expect it to sell much better? Then it probably will end up losing money. But until the next report to shareholders we really have no way of knowing.

 

[MarkFranz]

You simply cannot fake 5 hours-long enthousiasms.

Depends on how much i get paid, i can fake even 10 hours-long enthousiasm if needed, especially if it's recording which i can edit, cutting off bad parts.

 

[MarkFranz]

Cannibalized by people? What?

Look on post you quote, it's not "cannibalized" it's "cannabilized", it's clearly related to cannabis, not cannibals.

 

[Skydiver12]

Civ players are a tough crowd. Civ5, Civ6 and Humankind all weren't well received regardless of their enourmous budgets and UI polish.
It may just be my wishful thinking but I don't get a feeling that this is a game Paradox will drop. Reviews settled on 62% for now and can only go up unless the game is dropped, considering future buyers will be better informed what they're buying. And the number of reviews and first-day simultaneous players hint at a respectable sales number though probably nothing the Paradox CEO will jump in excitement about. Looked at isolation it could be a toss-up but several factors make me think otherwise:
1. The game seems good but cheap, with very little UI polish and very late marketing. I think Paradox didn't truly believe in this title at first and only recognized a potential winner after seeing the demo download numbers, then invested in some quick marketing. As a result it looks like the game has a shot at maintaining a modest niche following. If Paradox expected to get a flagsship AAA title out of this... with this amount of marketing and level of polish... I would be very surprised. The game doesn't even have a proper trailer, just some gameplay shots with voiceovers.
2. I tried to see the last time Paradox did something similar, and had to look all the way back to Warlock 2. It's the closest analog to Millenia, seems to have sold substantially less, and still didn't get abandoned (though this was very long ago, at the dawn of Paradox as a publisher, so that's not a guarantee, just a datapoint)
3. If Paradox can keep improving this game on the cheap it's probably a good idea for them to do so. After Lamplighters and ST Infinite dropping a third game in such a small timeframe would be horrible for their reputation. Also they've already pre-sold DLCs.

 

[Eber]

The OP mentions Vic 3 and CS 2 as examples as poorly received games that seem to be going the way of the dodo bird. First, both those games ran into certain public issues that were hard to get over. For Vic 3, the changed warfare system was received incredibly negatively, which assisted in the poor reviews. For CS 2, the very poor performance was a major factor. It also doesn't help that it's the sequel to CS, which after so many years of DLCs was a complete game. It's hard to live up to that. Do I think Vic 3 and CS 2 will get better over time? Yes, absolutely. Their review scores will increase and I would bet that CS 2 turns out to be a major success.

As for Millennia, it's a tough space to get players. The 4x genre has had a lot of newcomers, including Humankind and Old World. They both have their supports and haters. For Old World, it had a relatively bumpy start but now is seen as a great game. I honestly think Millennia will go more of the trajectory of Old World than Humankind. Civ players are a fickle bunch. Even today, a lot of players dislike Civ 6 and say Civ 5 is the best game of the series. It's just a rough gaming niche to get into.

We know Civ 7 is in development, but who knows what that will look like. Name recognition alone will make it a commercial success even if the game isn't as good as others. Then we have Ara: History Untold by Microsoft that will be released as well. This one has building up a lot of excitement and is looking good based on what we have seen. The reason I mention the two above games is because Millennia needed to be released around this time so it doesn't get lost in the releases of the above two. That's just simple economics. With that said, at least Millennia does try to do something different in its eras and culture picks. I honestly think Millennia did a better job than Humankind in really creating your own civilization's culture -- where both games stated you could.

I think Millennia is a good game that should only get better. By releasing it now, they have time to improve it and get feedback from the community on what can be changed to make it better. All and all that's a good thing. The only thing I'm sort of disappointed in is the graphics. They seem outdated and do not "pop" like even Humankind does. Though I still like it better than Civ 6 and the cartoonish nature of that game, ugh.