It's time for a steamcharts thread!

[RexKraemer]

I recommend visiting your nearby opticians. Here is a screengrab of the reviews page now (with filters selected as shown) - highlighted in yellow are "registration issues" reviews, and for laughs highlighted in orange are "too difficult, can't learn" reviews:

This one is interesting:

Loved the old Frontier.
You started there on a planet - at the New Hope port, right?
...
Was getting into Elite Dangerous
Learning curve steep. But fair enough, I enjoy that.
...
Got a contract to get some stuff.
Stuff can be only obtained at a surface outpost.
...
So I get to the planet.
And - no. ehhmm, how. How do I land? How do I even get close to surface? How do I locate the outpost?
...
I'm obviously missing something. So I humbly fly to the place where I can get tutored on planetary missions.
No help there
...
Getting slightly frustrated.
...
Getting increasingly frustrated.
...
Google
...
Tuuurns out YOU HAVE TO HAVE A BLOODY DLC TO BE ABLE TO LAND ON A ING PLANET.
THIS.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198047977557/recommended/359320/

It also refers to another thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/469111-Okay-FDEV-time-to-make-elite-fair-FOR-EVERYONE!

And there is a developer response:

Frontier-Minotaur [developer] Posted: 4 Jan @ 4:46pm
Sorry to hear that this happened to you, ideally Base game players should not have access to these missions and it sounds like something has gone wrong here.

Please could you report this to our bug forums here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php/105-PC-Bug-Reports

I am not sure if this helps for frustrated newcomers.

 

[thistle]

So are you saying they are reliable or not?

Yes.

 

[VR Murgle]

Look at launchday clearly no one could be playing longer than 15 minutes and it has the highest number? Search a launch day stream. But its ok for the game hope people keep playing so its longer alive.


was wrong 11 was launch 17 was first patch. Peak is on 17 after they fixed first network isues.

If you belive this statistic while the server where down 1.500 people where playing the game?

A just realised if the launcher is up steam says you playing the game, mabe the data is from that?

Actually...

I did...


play...


longer than 15 minutes...


on launch day.


Considerably longer...

 

[DeletedUser191218]

They are only meaningless when someone doesn't get their meaning, which sadly happens way to often on this forum.

Naysayer: The game is dying, there are less concurrent players than 3 months ago!!!
Not an idiot: That's because they released a major update 3 months ago, they will go up again with the next major update. It doesn't mean anything.
Naysayer: You are lying you stupid fanboy!!! THE NUMBERS DONT LIE!!! Frontier pays you to say these things!
Not an idiot: We'll see.

(3 months later)

Not an idiot: See? The player numbers are up again, the game wasn't dying.
Naysayer: YOU SAID THAT STEAM NUMBERS ARE MEANINGLESS!!!

I knew this would be a silly thread.

Ah so you're saying the ARE now reliable indicators of patterns in the broader player base. I'm fairly sure this contradicts what you were saying fairly recently. What convinced you to change your mind?

 

[DeletedUser191218]

They are only meaningless when someone doesn't get their meaning, which sadly happens way to often on this forum.

Naysayer: The game is dying, there are less concurrent players than 3 months ago!!!
Not an idiot: That's because they released a major update 3 months ago, they will go up again with the next major update. It doesn't mean anything.
Naysayer: You are lying you stupid fanboy!!! THE NUMBERS DONT LIE!!! Frontier pays you to say these things!
Not an idiot: We'll see.

(3 months later)

Not an idiot: See? The player numbers are up again, the game wasn't dying.
Naysayer: YOU SAID THAT STEAM NUMBERS ARE MEANINGLESS!!!

I knew this would be a silly thread.

Incidentally, by the rationale if your own argument, a bump in numbers shortly after an update is similarly not an indicator of the game's health. I'm not saying the game is dying or anything. Just pointing out that your argument equally works against your initial assertion.

 

[Speedcuffs]

He posted screenshots, LOL!

I use the quote function for actual quotes.
I use quotation marks for sarcasm, snark and irony.
(To wit: "I've never seen any despite you just posting them, so neeener neener!!")

AKA scare quotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation#Scare_quotes

Keyboard warrior is just the more common colloquialism.
Sorry to confuse you!


I live here, not on any forum:



Quite a primitive existence, yes it is.

Hangiiiiiiii![yesnod]

 

[Jenner]

Keep on topic, please. Discussion about Google image search will be (and has been) removed.

 

[Chaparral]

Good thing nobody does any of what you mentioned. You don't need to understand what nobody does.

Yeah - I don't think your being honest here at all.

Are you actually claiming that no on on this forum has ever been attacked for citing a steam statistic?

Are you actually claiming that people have not rejected inferences about steam data because it does not represent the entire player base?

Are you actually claiming that steam actively player patterns don't match weekends, goldrushes and patch releases?

I guess being rational isn't a forum poster requirement.

 

[Kaocraft]

The funny/sad part of it is that if you look at a huge number of the negative reviews, a lot of them had trouble with the actual game registration process, got frustrated and then refunded. So a lot of the negative reviews have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, and more to do with the registration process.

Proprietary standalone launchers are inexcusable and the Elite Dangerous launcher is a huge black mark against the game. People are completely justified giving the Elite a negative (or "not recommended") review of the game based on this one aspect alone.

Just make the game launch the game. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask.

 

[Kaocraft]

Doubt it, since there have been sales before.

That's the cheapest the non-gimped version of the game has ever been by a lot. I have a whole huge list of games on my wishlist which I'm never going to pay more than $15 for. Elite might be on a similar list for others.

 

[babelfisch]

Ah so you're saying the ARE now reliable indicators of patterns in the broader player base. I'm fairly sure this contradicts what you were saying fairly recently. What convinced you to change your mind?

You'll need to be more specific than that.

 

[babelfisch]

That's the cheapest the non-gimped version of the game has ever been by a lot. I have a whole huge list of games on my wishlist which I'm never going to pay more than $15 for. Elite might be on a similar list for others.

Yes, but someone who isn't interested in the game wouldn't even buy it for €5. Someone who is only slightly interested might buy it for €15 while someone who is slightly more interested might buy it for €25. I'd guess that interest and price level each other out. Meaning that the amount of people who buy it would be roughly the same for each sale, simply because there are less and less people interested who didn't already buy it. A huge amount of recent sales are probably also 2nd and 3rd accounts. So why should the number of new players suddenly be drastically different from the other sales?

 

[babelfisch]

Proprietary standalone launchers are inexcusable and the Elite Dangerous launcher is a huge black mark against the game. People are completely justified giving the Elite a negative (or "not recommended") review of the game based on this one aspect alone.

Just make the game launch the game. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask.

I agree, and I said the very same thing in another thread. However that doesn't tell us much about how enjoyable the actual game is. Which is pretty subjective anyway...

 

[babelfisch]

Yeah - I don't think your being honest here at all.

Are you actually claiming that no on on this forum has ever been attacked for citing a steam statistic?

Are you actually claiming that people have not rejected inferences about steam data because it does not represent the entire player base?

Are you actually claiming that steam actively player patterns don't match weekends, goldrushes and patch releases?

I guess being rational isn't a forum poster requirement.

No, I don't claim any of that. What I am claiming is that some people are using steam charts in a way that apparently shows the death of the game, because they are misinterpreting the numbers. If someone draws false conclusions the actual data becomes meaningless.

 

[babelfisch]

Incidentally, by the rationale if your own argument, a bump in numbers shortly after an update is similarly not an indicator of the game's health. I'm not saying the game is dying or anything. Just pointing out that your argument equally works against your initial assertion.

Not necessarily. If the peak is higher than it was at previous updates it's a pretty good sign that the game isn't dead yet.

 

[babelfisch]

So are you saying they are reliable or not?

It depends. They aren't reliable enough to tell me the actual number of people playing the game, but they are showing a trend. For example it shows that less people are playing in between updates (or that they are spending less time in the game).

 

[krylite]

The 'high numbers after an update mean nothing' quotes only came after people claimed that NMS is objectively the better game and that we should stop playing Elite because it sucks and is doomed. Nothing you ever said IIRC.
Anyway, it's besides the point, since Elite has seen updates before and the numbers we are comparing here are between these updates. Ultimately it doesn't matter since steam charts are pretty useless anyway.

Numbers can be meaningful or not depending on what you do with them. For example, Babel isn't saying it is noteworthy that the numbers are up. Indeed, there has been a patch, so that will explain it going up. However, he specifically points out that the expected upward trend resulted in more players than ever before, including spikes after previous updates. And including spikes after previous updates in december. Now that is something interesting, because it suggests the game isn't dying but rather the opposite.

Its why I posted a little shot a few days ago showing EvE, X4, NMS and ED in one chart. Seasonal trends were visibible and identical for all, but the games have unique trends as well. NMS has by FAR the highest maximum count (for example after NEXT), but also has the lowest 'core player group' by far. X4 has been in a consistent downward slope since the (IMHO disappointing) launch. ED has a core group above NMS, peaks with every patch but far less so then NMS, but also has an overall increasing player count.

Very true. The naysayers trolls were using those numbers to say ED was doomed and dying. Even X4 ("like ED but better") was touted as the death of ED. For myself, I maintained that ED managed to stay above obscurity (always above 200, thereabouts) and not fall to > 758+ whatever like other space genre games which only last for a season or a few months. And I referred to the significance of steamcharts as the comparison set of the games, not solely the individual numbers alone which is also repeatedly reminded only represent the number of players that launch through steam where the majority of activity is outside steam for ED, but also still a significant sample set. When NMS Next had it's heydays, of course myself and others particularly Stigbob acknowledged they were in a lead with far more exposure than any of Frontier's games ever had. But then realistically predicted NMS-Next would dwindle to a smaller core group as the illusion of NMS' scope and it's shorcut cartoony art design would likely not maintain the majority of its genre niche core playerbase past it's initial hype and updates discovery phase. (Similarly for X4, where it's niche has fared even lower now than NMS. Which also bodes poorly for CIG-StarCitizen hypothetical "future release" in that X4 already encapsulated a lot of the SC ponzi project's purported goals in an already realized game i.e. spacelegs + owned ship/fleet/bases) That's patently different than saying "NMS' big numbers mean 'nothing'" where we were just saying it was just the typical transitory bump from the majority of the short attention span of today's game consumerism.

 

[StuartGT]

 

[biot]

I wonder if I can get a refund on all that "Doomed" merch I binge-ordered on Amazon.

 

[Sylveria]

*shakes the Magic 8 Ball vigorously*....

Let's see what the numbers tell us this time!