07 Commanders, Signing Off

Do you have a source for this?
It is common knowledge that approx 8 million Epic accounts were 'given away' but not any statistics about how many play obviously available.
Actually I do remember seeing a stat some years ago, I think after a Steam sale or some sort of offer that only 1.2% of new players (again...from memory) progressed beyond a sidewinder.

Whilst that is not quite the same thing as completing the tutorial it did suggest a very low new player retention rate. I think it was in steam and was related to the achievements and how many players got the second ship achievement. Obviously it's not definitive as it doesn't account for all players but the sample pool was significant and therefore is probably quite representative.

Anyway that post is somewhere on this forum and although some time has passed since then I doubt the retention rate for a free EGS game would be any higher.
 
Actually I do remember seeing a stat some years ago, I think after a Steam sale or some sort of offer that only 1.2% of new players (again...from memory) progressed beyond a sidewinder.

Whilst that is not quite the same thing as completing the tutorial it did suggest a very low new player retention rate. I think it was in steam and was related to the achievements and how many players got the second ship achievement. Obviously it's not definitive as it doesn't account for all players but the sample pool was significant and therefore is probably quite representative.

Anyway that post is somewhere on this forum and although some time has passed since then I doubt the retention rate for a free EGS game would be any higher.
I am not sure, but I believe Steam doesn't have achievements so I guess you are confusing it with Xbox. Which has the 'Splashing Out - Buy a new ship' achievement. If my quick google search is correct, 44% unlocked that achievement. Which is still not awesome but slightly better than 1.2%... ;)
 
I am not sure, but I believe Steam doesn't have achievements so I guess you are confusing it with Xbox. Which has the 'Splashing Out - Buy a new ship' achievement. If my quick google search is correct, 44% unlocked that achievement. Which is still not awesome but slightly better than 1.2%... ;)

You can see that percentage in the Trophy screen at any time, on PS4 it's 48,3 atm.

Only 12% have ever interdicted a ship for example, 9,5 % have discovered a planet, I suspect many just fly around a bit :)
 
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Actually I do remember seeing a stat some years ago, I think after a Steam sale or some sort of offer that only 1.2% of new players (again...from memory) progressed beyond a sidewinder.

Whilst that is not quite the same thing as completing the tutorial it did suggest a very low new player retention rate. I think it was in steam and was related to the achievements and how many players got the second ship achievement. Obviously it's not definitive as it doesn't account for all players but the sample pool was significant and therefore is probably quite representative.

Anyway that post is somewhere on this forum and although some time has passed since then I doubt the retention rate for a free EGS game would be any higher.
There was the same comment made (not got past the tutorial) about console players too in the lat year or so, but, once again, only as hearsay.
I had been hopeful that there were published metrics as Epic itself doesn't appear to tell one any more than "X friend(s) have this game" or in a similar vein.

As players, (or customers, if one prefers) the only 'key' issue is Frontier's continuing (or otherwise) support of the game, any other metric is just a placebo as Frontier are not in the habit of sharing player numbers as a real-time figure.
 
I am not sure, but I believe Steam doesn't have achievements so I guess you are confusing it with Xbox. Which has the 'Splashing Out - Buy a new ship' achievement. If my quick google search is correct, 44% unlocked that achievement. Which is still not awesome but slightly better than 1.2%... ;)
Ah yes, I think you're right it was console not steam.

Not sure if it was Xbox or PS...again my memory fails me but I do remember the quoted stat being alarmingly low.

44% seems reasonable if that is indeed the case.
 
There was the same comment made (not got past the tutorial) about console players too in the lat year or so, but, once again, only as hearsay.
I had been hopeful that there were published metrics as Epic itself doesn't appear to tell one any more than "X friend(s) have this game" or in a similar vein.

As players, (or customers, if one prefers) the only 'key' issue is Frontier's continuing (or otherwise) support of the game, any other metric is just a placebo as Frontier are not in the habit of sharing player numbers as a real-time figure.
Yeah, it's all conjecture and capturing snippets of info to try and piece together the bigger picture.

Like you said, only FD know the real numbers and they're not in the habit of sharing, so I suppose these kind of threads will continue to appear.

I do think the steam concurrent player count is fairly representative of the games popularity (for want of a better word) amongst the player base, though not definitive.
 
Yeah, it's all conjecture and capturing snippets of info to try and piece together the bigger picture.

Like you said, only FD know the real numbers and they're not in the habit of sharing, so I suppose these kind of threads will continue to appear.

I do think the steam concurrent player count is fairly representative of the games popularity (for want of a better word) amongst the player base, though not definitive.
Steam charts certainly tells us something about the state of the game (if we ignore external factors like the weather etc.), we don't know if the active player base or playtime per player increases / decreases though. As an example (it's simplified but the rules still apply):

Let's say the average person plays 1 hour each day and playtime would be distributed evenly over the day, size of the active community on steam is 24000 (all assumptions are wrong, but that doesn't matter). In that case concurrent players would always be at 1000, correct?

Now let's say half the people leave the game, concurrent players would be at 500.

However, if nobody leaves the game but people play less, let's say 0.5 hours per day, concurrent players would also be at 500.

So we can't know if people quit or play less by looking at Steam charts. If we add external factors like the weather and end of lockdown it gets even more difficult to make assumptions about the player base. And that's just looking at average player numbers. If we also include peaks which usually happen around release because lots of players try it simultaneously it gets completely silly.

On the other hand Steamcharts certainly tells us about reception. If Odyssey would be the most awesome thing in the world, I am pretty sure that more people spend more time in it which would also be noticeable by looking at Steam charts. So by looking at it I guess Odyssey wasn't a success.
The last question is, did we really need Steam charts for that?
 
PS
One last thing about lockdown:

If you take a look at average concurrent players you can directly see the impact it had on playing time. From 2015-2020 average concurrent players was ~4000 (with some exceptions when there was a big release).
In April 2020 until recently it suddenly jumped to ~8000. So either the player base suddenly doubled for no good reason (very questionable) or people suddenly had much more time (factually true). My company was closed for an entire year. Children didn't go to school. It wasn't possible to drink a beer in a bar or visit a concert. Cinemas were closed. But playing computer games was OK...
So what is it?

As I said above, if Odyssey would be more awesome I am pretty sure that it would show in Steam charts. But the people who claimed that '75% of players quit playing Elite' because of Odyssey? Ridiculous...
 
He does have a point. But decommissioning carrier selling ships etc? Why? Why not just put 5 bill on carrier balance and pause all services ships docked for long term etc. That way he can change his mind as we all do, and come back & not be put out in any way.
I guess it's Op way of saying no. No more. Ending it by killing assets. Sheesh. Harsh.
GL cmdr
During monocle-gate (EVE Online), there was a surprising number of biomasses (total character deletions). Not nearly enough to affect the game in any significant way, or at least, that we know of. But there was enough to garner attention beyond the game into media. Which, of course, generates bad press for the crisis.

I don't see that happening in Elite, but who knows? If Fdev saw a large enough reduction in asset value across accounts (either by deleting/resetting or intentionally 'selling down' to reduce value), it would be worrying. Players that intentionally 'self-destruct' this way are all but guaranteed to not return. It's very self-defeating for the player, but...that's kind of the point.

"I am so angry/fed-up/etc that I'm going to ensure I don't want to come back."

Obviously a, um, questionable approach. But it does happen. And, if it happens enough, those with more level-heads should take note. For every kamikaze player, there's another hundred who just quit and didn't say anything. The behavior is only an outlier if you see just a handful, briefly.

Which, at this time, it would seem so. Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
 
Steam charts certainly tells us something about the state of the game (if we ignore external factors like the weather etc.), we don't know if the active player base or playtime per player increases / decreases though. As an example (it's simplified but the rules still apply):

Let's say the average person plays 1 hour each day and playtime would be distributed evenly over the day, size of the active community on steam is 24000 (all assumptions are wrong, but that doesn't matter). In that case concurrent players would always be at 1000, correct?

Now let's say half the people leave the game, concurrent players would be at 500.

However, if nobody leaves the game but people play less, let's say 0.5 hours per day, concurrent players would also be at 500.

So we can't know if people quit or play less by looking at Steam charts. If we add external factors like the weather and end of lockdown it gets even more difficult to make assumptions about the player base. And that's just looking at average player numbers. If we also include peaks which usually happen around release because lots of players try it simultaneously it gets completely silly.

On the other hand Steamcharts certainly tells us about reception. If Odyssey would be the most awesome thing in the world, I am pretty sure that more people spend more time in it which would also be noticeable by looking at Steam charts. So by looking at it I guess Odyssey wasn't a success.
The last question is, did we really need Steam charts for that?
The only silly thing is your atterly unrealistic scenario, where 24000 players would line up perfectly to log in 1000 players at a time for 1 hour to be replaced by the next 1000 players for the next hour.
You can't base anything on this unrealistic scenario.
 
The only silly thing is your atterly unrealistic scenario, where 24000 players would line up perfectly to log in 1000 players at a time for 1 hour to be replaced by the next 1000 players for the next hour.
You can't base anything on this unrealistic scenario.
You really have no clue. :ROFLMAO:
The scenario doesn't matter, it's about the principle which remains the same regardless of the scenario. That's why I simplified it, should be easy enough to understand.
 
If you've got any KFC, I'm interested.
KFC you say?

KFC_small.jpg
 
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