if you've been paying attention over the
past couple years to the world of video
game reporting you may have noticed a
trend concerning the health of recent
releases let me show you what i'm
talking about halo infinite steam player
count falls below halo master chief
collection apex legends revenue figures
reveal massive drop in popularity star
wars battlefront player count is poor
dominated by fallout 4. new world has
lost almost 90 percent of its players
since launch need i go on
yeah okay realm royale lost about 95 of
its player base the division player
count has dropped 93 for honor now has
95 of its player base lost worse than
division one anthem's player account
paints a very grim picture lost arc peak
players down 80 elder ring concurrent
player count has dropped dramatically
almost 90 percent losses we are obsessed
with concurrent player counts in games
specifically we're obsessed with how
many people are leaving a game and how
many people are still left and it's not
just games journalists and youtubers
looking to clickbait although there is
plenty of that for sure but also just go
to the forums or reddit page of any game
released in the past few years do a
quick search and you are guaranteed to
find plenty of threads talking about the
number of people leaving the game and
raising the question is this game dead
and if you were to base your opinion on
these discussions these articles and
these youtube videos the answer would
always be yes the game is dead um every
game in fact appears to be dead or dying
so like okay what's going on here
because that you know that doesn't make
a lot of sense right well i think
there's a lot of different elements that
go into this fixation on player count
but also many reasons why we continue to
see example after example of new game
comes out is popular for a time but then
loses 70 80 90 of its players shortly
thereafter some of the reasons are
simple like you know people just stop
playing games but some of them are a
little more complex and one assumption
that i just want to clear up immediately
is this idea that player count decline
is a direct indication of a bad game
just
no no no it's not it can be the
consequence of a bad game if you release
something that people are at first
excited for and then they jump in and
realize it's not so great yes they will
leave and that is some of what is taking
place here but also it doesn't matter if
a game is total trash or if it's
fantastic most nearly every game
actually will have a rather dramatic
decline in player count eventually there
are of course some exceptions games that
come up and post-launch will steadily
grow fortnite was one such a case when
epic released the battle royale spin-off
of their pve horde mode game in july
2017 not a lot of people were playing at
first but then in the following months
it saw massive growth becoming at least
for a time one of the biggest games in
the world but these are outliers and not
every game can have fortnite or
minecraft or vanilla world of warcraft
levels of post-launch growth and even
those that do inevitably see a decline
as well the record for largest peak
player count ever recorded on steam goes
to pubg the game launched in march 2017
and then later that year in december
reached a staggering peak of three
million two hundred and thirty six
thousand concurrent players now today it
is down nearly ninety percent pathetic
right well no no not actually because
that still puts them at an average daily
peak at roughly 350 000 concurrent
players which most days has pubg still
in the top five most played games on all
of steam so percentages can be deceiving
like yes it has dropped 90 but 90 of the
highest recorded player count on the
platform ever is still a very large
number and while we don't have steam
player count numbers for every game we
can use google trends as a barometer as
imperfect as this may be it does give us
a general sense of things for example
take a look at minecraft which to date
is the highest selling video game in the
world ever it peaked in popularity in
july 2013 which was about two years
after release it then progressively
dropped down to an 80 decline which
occurred in october 2018 and although it
has started trending up since then it is
still at the moment a mere 50 percent
what it was at its peak we know from
back when blizzard published subscriber
counts for world of warcraft that that
game peaked at the end of wrath of the
lich king in 2010 that was a solid six
years of growth which is very impressive
but ever since then it has been a
downward slide so as you can see even
with amazing games even with some of the
biggest most popular titles in the world
they all follow the same trend of losing
massive amounts of players over time we
just have example after example after
example in fact i think a perfect recent
showcase of this would be eldon ring
while some people may argue otherwise
this is clearly a great game it is no
doubt gonna make its way onto most top
10 lists this year and it's also bound
to rake in many game of the year awards
as well this should be one of those
titles that we can all point to as one
of the better games to come out in 2022
nevertheless there are currently a bunch
of articles and youtube videos pointing
out the fact that the game has lost a
significant number of players which is
an accurate observation eldon ring
peaked at about 953 000 concurrent
players on march 3rd a week after it
launched and then a month later that
dropped down to 450 000 peak and as of
today it sits around 50 000 peak
concurrent players which is roughly a 95
decrease dead game right no no not a
dead game it's just a game that a lot of
people played and then finished whether
or not they completed the game or not
they played through it they had their
experience and then they put it down
they moved on as is the natural
progression for most games on the flip
side of course though we've got plenty
of examples of bad games that see a
decline in player count but that's just
my point great game or bad game most
games will see a decline it's really
just a matter of when and for bad games
that decline is likely to happen a whole
lot sooner okay so now that we've
established that this is gonna happen no
matter what great games crappy games uh
decline is gonna happen what's with the
fixation why do we keep talking about
these massive percentage drops why is it
always brought up why is it used to
reference and call games dead games let
me touch on this there was recently an
article posted on pc gamer titled
fixating on player accounts and dead
games is making gaming worse the main
takeaway from this was pretty much that
we care way too much about player counts
and we should instead just enjoy and
play the games that we find fun
regardless of how many other people are
playing and i agree to an extent like i
agree that it shouldn't matter if there
are 20 000 or 20 concurrent players in a
particular game if i am having a good
time while i'm playing that is what
counts right yes of course back in the
day when i went to my local blockbuster
to rent a copy of metal gear solid uh
like a full two years after this
released i had no idea or care for how
many other people were playing
simultaneously and had today's trend of
reporting on percent player count drops
been a thing back then almost certainly
i would have seen headlines in a
magazine like metal gear solid massive
flop 99 player count decline and had i
let that influence me and not rented the
game i would have missed out on one of
the best gaming experiences of my life
similarly today had i seen a 90 player
count decline in eldon ring as a sign
that people didn't like the game and not
played it i would have been doing myself
a massive diffs surface so i agree that
we shouldn't let player count declines
necessarily determine if we are
interested and wanting to play a game
that should not be a primary factor
however while i agree with that there is
a big distinction to be made between
that kind of game and these online only
or games as a service titles because
player counts and growth or decline tend
to tell a bit of a different story and
have different implications here ones
that are becoming ever more relevant for
gamers as the years go on today's gaming
landscape is very different from back
when i went to blockbuster to rent metal
gear solid in 2022 a large proportion of
all of the new games coming out each and
every year fall into the live service
games as a service always online
category games that require a constant
internet connection and further support
from the developer to get all of their
content and to even continue existing
they tend to follow a similar formula
they will launch with a base and promise
continual support and additions over
time the game comes out it is more or
less incomplete with the promise of
completion coming later on there will be
a road map of regular planned updates
seasons that will bring in new content
and progression goals weekly events to
keep you coming back so on and so on
this is the case in just about every
genre aaa fps titles like call of duty
apex legends and overwatch looter
shooters like destiny division and
warframe you got the mobas league of
legends and dota mmos world of warcraft
final fantasy 14 eso guild wars 2 so on
and so on but even games and genres you
might not expect like some mostly
single-player rpgs turn-based games card
games nearly everything has become a
live service that is tied to a server
and promising that there will be more of
the game to come and for these titles if
there isn't an active player base
spending money or new players buying the
game to fund further development update
plans might get delayed or even
cancelled altogether that content
roadmap that they launched with if not
enough people bought and are playing the
game just forget about it and might as
well have been a hallucination so when a
new game launches and the player-based
tanks there is a significant chance that
promises the developer made about what
the game will include later down the
road they are going to change and for
this reason it is probably best not to
purchase a game based on what is
promised to come based on what is
currently in the game but it's also for
that reason that i think players are so
keenly interested and constantly talk
about concurrent player counts but not
getting like some future promise updates
or content patches or dlc or expansions
that's one thing even worse is games
just getting shut down being a lifelong
fan of mmos i have seen this a lot games
that i've had an absolute blast playing
over the years like wildstar warhammer
online firefall everquest next landmark
all of these and many more are dead but
not like lol the player base is dropping
haha dead game rip xd no like literally
dead as in they don't exist anymore in
most cases of course this happened
because the game didn't have a large or
active enough player base to fund and
sustain the game's development and yeah
this has been occurring in the mmo space
for a long time we are used to it but
recently in the past few years it has
started to creep into other more
mainstream parts of gaming as these
always online titles in other genres
have reached the end of their
financially viable to keep afloat cycle
just last month ubisoft announced plans
to shut down online services for 15 of
their games these include five
assassin's creed titles far cry 3
splinter cell blacklist prince of persia
the forgotten sands and a handful of
others and we've seen some other very
high profile examples of games from big
studios shutting down in recent years
epic shut down paragon in 2018 2k shut
down evolve in 2018. 2k also shut down
battleborn in 2021 we saw ubisoft shut
down hyperscape in 2022. there's also a
long list of games that while
technically not shut down might as well
be valve's artifact is a great example
of this i mean it is as good as dead and
that's just covering some of the aaa
examples from these massively successful
developers and publishers that everyone
knows about the list of double a and
indie and early access games that have
just vanished from existence over these
past five or so years it is very large
and it is ever growing so when a game
comes out and we see an immediate
decline in players i think that is a
genuine cause of concern for people is
the game gonna knock at the support that
they're saying it's gonna get or worse
yet is the game going to shut down
people are worried about this and
rightfully so and along these same lines
when it comes to player count it has
something to say about the health of a
game just like review scores and user
scores player count is another metric
that people are using to help determine
is this game good and is it worth
checking out as we've covered it is of
course natural for people to stop
playing every game eventually but
especially for games that are designed
to be played over longer periods of time
and built to be logged into every day
like the developer the publisher they
are designing these games for people to
come back day in and day out how much
and how quickly a player base drops in
these titles is noteworthy and a clear
indicator of an issue for potential
players if a new mmo launches and loses
90 of its player base in a single month
that tells a story it could be that the
game is having a lot of server issues
people can't log in so they stop trying
it could be that the game is full of
bugs glitchy laggy or could be that it's
simply not fun to play and after giving
it a shot people quit sooner than later
or let's say we've got a game that comes
out numbers are strong they grow even
initially in the first couple of weeks
but then they start heavily declining
after a month or two this could be an
indication that the late or the end game
content is lacking player count is just
one factor like you you don't get the
entire story just by looking at these
numbers but if you take player count and
you add in player experience the
discussion that's happening online
around these games then it starts to
paint a picture of what the larger
issues may be and what could be causing
player decline beyond that natural drop
that every game even the best games in
the world all see and that is
interesting for the current as well as
the potential players and then there's
just the fact that everything is vying
for our attention and there is way too
much of all of it there are too many
live service games that want us playing
every day all day and with how gaming is
at the moment i think much of the
fixation on active player count just
stems from people not wanting to waste
their time or their money as much as you
can just enjoy a game for what it is in
the moment there is a big draw for a lot
of people to spend their time on
something that will last like i really
enjoyed firefall it wasn't perfect but i
had fun playing over the course of a few
years firefall no longer existing
doesn't take away the fun that i had but
on the other hand there's a functionally
infinite number of games that i haven't
played more games than i will ever play
in my lifetime that i could have played
so would my time have been better spent
not on firefall but say playing final
fantasy 14. i don't know maybe like with
anything in life making a decision to do
one thing is a decision to not do
literally everything else so choosing to
spend time playing one game means not
spending that time playing any of the
other games that is just a fact of being
alive and having to make choices and i
think with that there is a natural fear
people have to not want to spend their
time doing something that they feel in
the end was a waste although i don't
believe that experiencing a game that
gets shut down or loses further
development and functionally becomes
abandoned i don't believe it becomes a
waste if it's no longer playable but i
do understand the aversion and like i
said there is a long list of factors
that go into this fixation that we have
with concurrent player accounts and
whether or not a game is dead or dying
and i imagine what we've touched on here
is just one facet of the entire picture
and as more time passes and more great
games release all in competition with
each other for our time this isn't gonna
get any better we are gonna keep
fixating on player counts on discussions
around forums and articles all of this
this isn't 2004 you know when wow came
out and there were like one or two other
good mmos to potentially play nowadays
there are hundreds if not thousands if
not hundreds of thousands of great games
that we could just boot up right now and
play instead and that list will just
keep on growing with time so there are
tough decisions to be made and looking
at reviews and everything around games
and yes looking at active player counts
and noting their decline and how quick
that decline happens this is all
factored into the decisions that we're
making on what games to play and what
games to spend our time on and there you
go that is going to do it for this video
this was fun a little bit different than
my usual affair but nevertheless i had a
good time i hope you enjoyed it it's
kind of fun diving into a topic like
this thank you guys so much as always
for watching hope you enjoy the content
i'll see you in the next one all right
take it easy