Player Count | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:44:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Player Count | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Former Valve dev slams SteamDB and its impact on Early Access games https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/former-valve-dev-slams-steamdb-and-its-impact-on-early-access-games/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/former-valve-dev-slams-steamdb-and-its-impact-on-early-access-games/#respond Tue, 28 Nov 2023 15:55:22 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=639116 Chet Faliszek, former Valve veteran and writer for iconic games including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal, has expressed some heavy criticism of the Early Access model this week. Faliszek left Valve a few years ago to start up a new studio, which released its first game, The Anacrusis, into early access last year. …

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Chet Faliszek, former Valve veteran and writer for iconic games including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal, has expressed some heavy criticism of the Early Access model this week. Faliszek left Valve a few years ago to start up a new studio, which released its first game, The Anacrusis, into early access last year. However, Faliszek isn't too happy with how the game is being perceived, in large part thanks to the way that SteamDB reports player numbers.

Faliszek, who departed Valve to co-found Stray Bombay with Kimberly Voll, formerly of Riot Games, expressed concerns about the way player numbers are leveraged against studios following the release of The Anacrusis. The game has been in early access since January 2022, but the studio is finding it tough to grow its fanbase due to the perception of the game being ‘dead'.

Writing in a LinkedIn post, Faliszek shared his experience, stating: “I think one of the reason I will never do Early Access again is… how player counts are seen by steam and then downwind by the community. Steamdb will say we have 1 player yesterday, we have 10,000.”

If SteamDB is failing to report accurate numbers, then it creates a much more negative view of a game than necessary. While Faliszek does say that their internal player numbers are boosted a bit thanks to crossplay, but also says that there is a threshold that needs to be achieved for “real numbers” to be counted on sites like SteamDB.

Faliszek adds that the SteamDB stats get “thrown out every time” an update for The Anacrusis is published, despite those numbers being inaccurate. Ultimately, this goes against the very reason Steam Early Access was designed in the first place. It is supposed to be used as a tool for developers to get players into their game early and monitor feedback while the team continues to grow the game over time. However, the misperception that a game is ‘dead' can make growth near impossible for smaller teams.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: This is the first time that I'm hearing that SteamDB potentially synthesises player counts. If true, then it should absolutely no longer be used as a source for games media articles, or in research efforts when thinking about picking up a new multiplayer game.

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Destiny 2 is sinking and Bungie only has itself to blame https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/destiny-2-is-sinking-and-bungie-only-has-itself-to-blame/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/destiny-2-is-sinking-and-bungie-only-has-itself-to-blame/#respond Mon, 20 Nov 2023 18:46:05 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=638224 In 2022, Destiny 2 had its best year ever, thanks to the excellent Witch Queen expansion and the seasonal content that followed. This ultimately led to all-time high concurrent player counts when the follow-up expansion, Lightfall, launched earlier this year. Unfortunately, the Lightfall expansion amounted to little more than filler content, leading to many players …

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In 2022, Destiny 2 had its best year ever, thanks to the excellent Witch Queen expansion and the seasonal content that followed. This ultimately led to all-time high concurrent player counts when the follow-up expansion, Lightfall, launched earlier this year. Unfortunately, the Lightfall expansion amounted to little more than filler content, leading to many players becoming frustrated with the game. Now, player counts are hitting all-time lows on PC. 

As pointed out by Forbes, Steam Charts now shows that Destiny 2's average player count sits at just under 35K concurrent players on Steam in the last 30 days and the peak concurrent player count is less than 60K. While not horrible numbers, these are the lowest numbers Destiny 2 has pulled on PC since launching on Steam in 2019.

This confirms exactly what Bungie told employees in October when it laid off a chunk of its staff. Revenues for Destiny 2 this year were apparently 45 percent below projections due to low player retention. These latest player numbers on Steam support exactly that. However, it is also worth pointing out that it was Bungie's leadership that chose to split its planned three expansions into four.

Originally, Lightfall was set to be the most significant expansion in the game's history, wrapping up the ‘Light and Darkness' saga to clear things up for a fresh new Destiny story. However, Bungie eventually decided to cut Lightfall significantly, putting all the major story content into a new expansion, The Final Shape, which is due to release in 2024.

Bungie had to have known that players wouldn't be impressed by Lightfall's filler campaign, which does very little to move the story forward. Players were expecting to take on The Witness, or at the very least, learn some meaningful information about the character and where they came from. Instead, what we got was the revival of an old villain and a shoe-horned-in story, with the only meaningful cutscene arriving at the very end of the campaign.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Beyond Light and The Witch Queen had me so excited for Destiny 2's future. Lightfall was the first time I felt completely and utterly ripped off by the game. I am not shocked that Destiny 2 is in a poor place right now but ultimately, Bungie leadership only has itself to blame. If The Final Shape doesn't deliver, then I doubt there is a salvageable future for the game at all. 

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Marvel’s Avengers free weekend boosts PC player base https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/marvels-avengers-free-weekend-boosts-pc-player-base/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/marvels-avengers-free-weekend-boosts-pc-player-base/#respond Mon, 02 Aug 2021 14:29:34 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=525599 Last week, Square Enix announced that the first major expansion for Marvel's Avengers, which will introduce Black Panther to the game, will be releasing in August. To celebrate, over the weekend, the game went free to play for a limited time and sure enough, it did seem to reinvigorate the player base a bit.  Over …

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Last week, Square Enix announced that the first major expansion for Marvel's Avengers, which will introduce Black Panther to the game, will be releasing in August. To celebrate, over the weekend, the game went free to play for a limited time and sure enough, it did seem to reinvigorate the player base a bit. 

Over the free weekend, Marvel's Avengers rose from just a few hundred active players, to several thousand, peaking at over 10,200. Currently, there are just under 7,000 players online concurrently, with just a couple of hours left to go in the free weekend.

The game is still performing worse than you'd expect from a high-budget Marvel game, and Square Enix has been unable to push peak concurrent players over launch-day numbers. However, for a game that had less than a thousand average concurrent players just a few months ago, this is a decent turn around.

Marvel's Avengers will get its ‘War for Wakanda' expansion on the 16th of August, ending the current content roadmap. More content is planned, but outside of the PlayStation exclusive Spider-Man DLC, nothing else has been announced so far.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Did any of you play this during the free weekend? Will you be sticking around for the upcoming expansion, or did the game fail to impress? 

 

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PUBG falls below 1 million peak concurrent players for the first time in a year https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/pubg-falls-below-1-million-peak-concurrent-players-for-the-first-time-in-a-year/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/pubg-falls-below-1-million-peak-concurrent-players-for-the-first-time-in-a-year/#respond Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:54:10 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=386467 Player Unknown's Battlegrounds dominated gaming all throughout 2017 and despite some stiff competition from Fortnite this year, the game has continued to do incredibly well on Steam. Every single day for 365 days straight, PUBG managed to maintain a peak concurrent player count of over 1 million. That streak unfortunately came to an end yesterday. …

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Player Unknown's Battlegrounds dominated gaming all throughout 2017 and despite some stiff competition from Fortnite this year, the game has continued to do incredibly well on Steam. Every single day for 365 days straight, PUBG managed to maintain a peak concurrent player count of over 1 million. That streak unfortunately came to an end yesterday.

For starters, lets point out that this isn't exactly bad news, its just interesting to look at the numbers from time to time. Bringing in over one million players every day for a year is an incredible achievement and the drop off isn't exactly severe. As SteamDB's statistics point out, PUBG fell to 960,000 peak concurrent players yesterday, which coincidentally is also when the Call of Duty Blackout beta began on PS4.

PUBG has been on a steady decline since January, after the game hit an all time high peak player count of 3.2 million. Right now, most players are awaiting the map update, but the game will face some renewed competition this year from Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and Battlefield V, both of which feature their own battle royale modes.

KitGuru Says: PUBG is still pulling in impressive numbers on PC and the situation is likely even better when you take mobile and Xbox into account. Do many of you still play PUBG regularly? I've not jumped in for a while but I'm hoping the next map update can reel me back in. 

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Rainbow Six Siege hits all-time high player record as Year Three commences https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/rainbow-six-siege-hits-all-time-high-player-record-as-year-three-commences/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/rainbow-six-siege-hits-all-time-high-player-record-as-year-three-commences/#respond Thu, 08 Mar 2018 09:36:35 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=366188 Rainbow Six Siege is just entering its third year on the market and it looks like Ubisoft's consistent content updates are paying off well. This week, Rainbow Six Siege saw huge growth, setting a new concurrent player record for the game on PC. Previously, Rainbow Six Siege's peak concurrent player record was 125,000 on Steam. …

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Rainbow Six Siege is just entering its third year on the market and it looks like Ubisoft's consistent content updates are paying off well. This week, Rainbow Six Siege saw huge growth, setting a new concurrent player record for the game on PC.

Previously, Rainbow Six Siege's peak concurrent player record was 125,000 on Steam. However, following the recent Operation Chimera update, the game hit 176,856 concurrent players, which is a very impressive jump. Better yet, this is just the data from Steam, and doesn't count the number of players also online via uPlay, with that in mind, it seems that Rainbow Six Siege is only getting bigger and better over time.

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Rainbow Six Siege first released in December 2015 on PC, Xbox One and PS4. Across all three platforms, Ubisoft has garnered up more than 27 million players in total. This figure may count free trial players, but nevertheless, there is clearly still a lot of interest in this game.

KitGuru Says: Back in the day, Counter-Strike: Source was my go-to shooter. Nowadays, CS has very much been replaced by Rainbow Six Siege for me. The continued support from Ubisoft helps with that, as there is always new content on the way. If things continue like this, then we could see Siege stick around for a very long time. Are many of you still playing Rainbow Six Siege? How often do you jump in?

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Overwatch surpasses 35 million players https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/overwatch-surpasses-35-million-players/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/overwatch-surpasses-35-million-players/#respond Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:51:40 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=350682 During Overwatch's first year on the market, the game has hit a number of milestones. 15 million players had enjoyed the game during the Summer of last year and by May this year, that number had doubled to 30 million. Now, with the Halloween event getting under way, Overwatch has managed to surpass the 35 …

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During Overwatch's first year on the market, the game has hit a number of milestones. 15 million players had enjoyed the game during the Summer of last year and by May this year, that number had doubled to 30 million. Now, with the Halloween event getting under way, Overwatch has managed to surpass the 35 million player mark.

Some of these players will be alternate accounts, or those who had hopped on during a free weekend. Still, 35 million players is certainly nothing to scoff at and shows that Overwatch is still very popular 18 months after release.

To help keep Overwatch growing, Blizzard will be tackling esports next with the Overwatch League, which has garnered support from major sports franchises already, as well as established esports organisations. On top of that, Overwatch will continue to be supported by community events, new maps and new characters.

We currently don't know who the next Overwatch character will be or when we will see them, but last time we checked, Blizzard has several new maps in the works, so new content is on the way.

KitGuru Says: I haven't played Overwatch properly in quite some time but it is good to see that the playerbase is still so active. Are any of you still playing Overwatch regularly?

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Destiny 2 surpasses 1.2 million concurrent players https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/destiny-2-surpasses-1-2-million-concurrent-players/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/destiny-2-surpasses-1-2-million-concurrent-players/#comments Mon, 11 Sep 2017 09:04:56 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=346357 After several months of hype building Bungie's Destiny 2 launched in the middle of last week. Things seem to have been going very well so far too, as over the weekend more than 1.2 million guardians were logged in to Destiny playing at once. With 1.2 million concurrent players, Destiny 2 is off to a …

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After several months of hype building Bungie's Destiny 2 launched in the middle of last week. Things seem to have been going very well so far too, as over the weekend more than 1.2 million guardians were logged in to Destiny playing at once.

With 1.2 million concurrent players, Destiny 2 is off to a great start. It is also worth remembering that this number was reached based on the console launch alone, later on in October Destiny 2 will also hit PC, which may bring another big boost.

For comparison's sake, PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds also surpassed 1 million concurrent players recently, surpassing PC gaming giants like Dota 2 and CS:GO. Destiny 2 won't be launching on Steam, which means some Steam loyalists may not jump on board. However, Battle.net is still a solid and widely used platform, so that shouldn't hinder the game too much.

KitGuru Says: 1.2 million concurrent players is a huge amount but we have yet to see whether or not Bungie will be able to keep everyone coming back for more with future content releases. Did any of you jump on to Destiny 2 last week during launch? I'm still trying to wait for the PC version myself. 

 

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Ubisoft has revised its statement on The Division’s player count https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/ubisoft-has-revised-its-statement-on-the-divisions-player-count/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/ubisoft-has-revised-its-statement-on-the-divisions-player-count/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2016 12:19:17 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=313627 Last weekend, we got news that The Division's player count may finally be back to launch numbers, following Ubisoft's move to delay DLC to fix up all complaints with the game to bring players back in. Things weren't quite adding up according to Steam Chart numbers but given that a large portion of PC owners …

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Last weekend, we got news that The Division's player count may finally be back to launch numbers, following Ubisoft's move to delay DLC to fix up all complaints with the game to bring players back in. Things weren't quite adding up according to Steam Chart numbers but given that a large portion of PC owners will have uPlay codes instead, this didn't really paint the full picture. Still, Ubisoft has now chosen to revise its statement a bit to better reflect the actual situation with the game.

No, The Division isn't back to its exact launch numbers as previously said. However, Ubisoft's Anne Blondel has since revised her statement: “what I meant to say is the numbers for The Division are trending back in a positive direction”, she explained to PCGamesN.

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“Thanks to what we’ve seen with patch 1.4 and other updates the team has delivered. What I should have said is, we think it’s possible that The Division follows a similar pattern to Rainbow Six: Siege, which has seen increasing engagement to the point that DAU numbers have equalled those we saw during the launch period.”

So the initial statement was a tad misleading. However, it does look like things are looking positive for The Division following its recent patches. The new Survival DLC has also arrived, which will be bringing back in some players.

KitGuru Says: The Division does have more players than it did over the summer but things aren't quite back to launch numbers as previously believed. Perhaps we will see the game make a true resurgence similarly to Rainbow Six: Siege, which will be getting a ‘Year 2' season pass in 2017.

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The Division’s active player count ‘back to launch numbers’ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/the-divisions-active-player-count-back-to-launch-numbers/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/the-divisions-active-player-count-back-to-launch-numbers/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2016 13:40:36 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=313146 Update: Ubisoft has revised its original statement, claiming that the original wording was a ‘miscommunication'. An updated statement has since been issued, which now claims that The Division's player numbers are “trending in a positive direction”, rather than claiming launch numbers are back. Full story, HERE. Original Story: While The Division started off as a …

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Update: Ubisoft has revised its original statement, claiming that the original wording was a ‘miscommunication'. An updated statement has since been issued, which now claims that The Division's player numbers are “trending in a positive direction”, rather than claiming launch numbers are back. Full story, HERE.

Original Story: While The Division started off as a fairly strong offering with a large community, the player count did start to drop dramatically after Ubisoft began prioritising future DLC updates over patches, bug fixes and addressing community concerns. However, since then Ubisoft has been working hard on turning things around and it appears to be working as apparently The Division's active player count returned to launch numbers after the Patch 1.4, which made sweeping changes to the game.

This is according to Ubisoft's VP of live operations, Anne Blondel, who explained to pcgamesn that when the player count began dropping, Ubisoft had to make a tough call: “Some players left the game earlier than what we thought, then we had to make that tough call – do we keep providing them with extra content or do we stop everything for a while, settle down, fix everything and then once the game is where it should be, then we start providing more content.”

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Some players were apparently initially disappointed in future content being delayed. However, judging by the community reaction since, Ubisoft made the right call: “Since the release of patch 1.4, we went back to the daily active users we had at launch, because people were so impressed”. Unfortunately, verifying these numbers can be tricky as all physical copies of the game and most third-party sellers will be dealing in uPlay codes, and we can't see the sales figures or player counts for games on uPlay. We can see the Steam numbers through services like Steam Spy but due to the split base on PC, this does not give an accurate representation or paint the full picture.

Aside from the patch, Ubisoft has also implemented the public test realm in order to gauge community reaction from hardcore players and take feedback before pushing out future updates to everyone.  Now that the game seems to be back to where it should be, Ubisoft has got back on track with DLC, with the Survival DLC releasing this week. There will be another expansion titled ‘Last Stand' in 2017 too.

KitGuru Says: I was a big fan of The Division at launch but eventually ran out of patience when it came to endgame bugs. Fortunately, all of the changes seem to have cleaned things up quite a bit and I can finally enjoy the game again. Have any of you jumped back into The Division since the new changes were implemented? Do you think Ubisoft has done enough to win people back?

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