2.1 generated very little interest on Steam. Player numbers still in the dirt.

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Errr....if I remember correctly, 4k - 5k was number six months ago maybe? So in nutshell it is not fallen of that much. Also people buy games directly from developers more and more, not because they want to spite Valve, but to give all their money to devs. Plus most likely as FD launcher is used, sometimes it is not correctly triggered.

Only FD knows true numbers and so far at least BrettC told us that player numbers look healthy and historically there's little if any drop. So either less Steam users play ED, or Steam accounting is borked or something else is off.

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When Horizons was released, steam was all sorts of messed up. It was faster and easier to re-download everything stand alone than to wait for steam to get their ducks in a row. After that, why would you go back? I would be willing to bet gold for spit the majority of those 3000 players are new players after 2.0 launched.

This. FD screwed up Horizons launch on Steam and most likely it made lot of players to use FD launcher instead of Steam one.

 

[Privata]

Errr....if I remember correctly, 4k - 5k was number six months ago maybe? So in nutshell it is not fallen of that much. Also people buy games directly from developers more and more, not because they want to spite Valve, but to give all their money to devs. Plus most likely as FD launcher is used, sometimes it is not correctly triggered.

Only FD knows true numbers and so far at least BrettC told us that player numbers look healthy and historically there's little if any drop. So either less Steam users play ED, or Steam accounting is borked or something else is off.

And if something is wrong FD will be working on solutions

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

And if something is wrong FD will be working on solutions

Yeah. FD doesn't leave impression of wishful thinking - if they will see player base number plummet they will something about it - after all they reacted to Horizons pricing issues, splitting game up and allowing people to choose. Guys are smart. And they have money.

If some people are looking for evidence that FD does something wrong and thus player numbers fall - don't, you just torture yourself. If you don't like game design, take a break. Despite what you think FD doesn't spite their player base - they however don't yield to just moans.

If you are afraid to bet on game which might disappear due of player count...first, no, it won't happen, there's quite a lot people happy with the game. Second more ports are coming - PS4 definitely. They just launched XBO port for Horizons! It will keep coming.

 

[Gaarp Kobayashi]

Nnnnot quite.

Counting Tetris' sales over the course of more than 2 decades and 20 platforms is not the same as counting the sales of one platform. Specifically because you're looking at a platform, and not a game.

Steam has 125 million active users as of February. Compare that to the Playstation 4 which has shipped 40 million units. This is comparing platform to platform. The only platform that was more widespread was the Playstation 2, which took 11 years to sell 155 million units, which does not translate to 155 million active units. The number of active units was only a small fraction of that at the time of the console's discontinuation.

If you count handhelds then the Nintendo DS is right behind the PS2 with 154 million units, largely because Nintendo made some 3,786 different versions of it and numpties were collecting them like poke-candy.

Steam has moved 1.86 billion game copies, 600 million of those were in the last year. If you want to find similar numbers for the PS4 or XB1 you'll have to count each game individually. I can help you out by saying neither one will add up to 10% of this though.

PC gaming is the largest active market in the industry right now along with being the fastest growing and the highest grossing, and Steam dominates it. If you aren't doing well on Steam you aren't doing well period.

Sell a copy of Elite: Dangerous to 1 out of every 100 active users on Steam and you've doubled the number of copies sold to date on that platform. That's not an unrealistic goal for Developers of FDev's caliber, is it?

Wow dude!! You're my personal hero now with such a brain for numbers and gaming industry! I assume you're a part of it some way...

And no, it isn't an unrealistic goal for Frontier at all. Their "Planet Tycoon" (alpha now) will be a huge comercial success, this is already very well visible everywhere and based on the first industry's impressions. They are very experienced developer, being on the market for such a long time, they have invested into amazing VR experiemce with Elite Dangerous, which is a perfect moment imho to do so, providing the customers of VR one of the major, serious title to have fun with such way (if not the only serious title for that!) and they are the ones who alongside "Cloud Empire" (guess that's the name of "Star Citizen's" developer?) are reviving one of the most exceptional genre there is - space sims, which is indeed a way of having fun for not an average player base maybe, but for the player base with a deeper than regular player pockets, who is not affraid investing its money into some proper hi-tech gear, game add-ons and new content seasons to spend with long, long hours infront of monitor or with their headset mounted...

To be honest, I think Elite Dangerous and Frontier itself is only having their best years before them, as the road they have chosen is leading them to unavoidable, spectacular, global-wide success within comming years. Those poor kids playing along now have no idea yet, they are being taken on this groundbreaking trip which only have started now

How to say...? "It's good time for us to be alive Commander!"

Thank you for this mature convo Windscreen Smudge. Was a pleasure. Goin' sleep now I'm affraid

 

[Privata]

Yeah. FD doesn't leave impression of wishful thinking - if they will see player base number plummet they will something about it - after all they reacted to Horizons pricing issues, splitting game up and allowing people to choose. Guys are smart. And they have money.

If some people are looking for evidence that FD does something wrong and thus player numbers fall - don't, you just torture yourself. If you don't like game design, take a break. Despite what you think FD doesn't spite their player base - they however don't yield to just moans.

If you are afraid to bet on game which might disappear due of player count...first, no, it won't happen, there's quite a lot people happy with the game. Second more ports are coming - PS4 definitely. They just launched XBO port for Horizons! It will keep coming.

True words.
Anything can happen in the future , but I think the future looks good for elite.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

LOL. You lot are the same bright sparks who declared E: D dead on arrival when 2.0 hit. Yet the game is still selling, across multiple platforms, 6 months later. Also, 2.1 saw the number of users grow by *thousands*, even just going on your beloved steam stats. Seriously, do you ever get tired of being WRONG all the time? As for direction, you whiny cry-babies don't seem to have any DIRECTION at all.....beyond wanting a game that rewards grinders with an "I WIN" button. Now, stop trolling and go play some No Man's Sky.....oops, that's a bit of a sore point for you trolls, isn't it?

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Wow dude!! You're my personal hero now with such a brain for numbers and gaming industry! I assume you're a part of it some way...

And no, it isn't an unrealistic goal for Frontier at all. Their "Planet Tycoon" (alpha now) will be a huge comercial success, this is already very well visible everywhere and based on the first industry's impressions. They are very experienced developer, being on the market for such a long time, they have invested into amazing VR experiemce with Elite Dangerous, which is a perfect moment imho to do so, providing the customers of VR one of the major, serious title to have fun with such way (if not the only serious title for that!) and they are the ones who alongside "Cloud Empire" (guess that's the name of "Star Citizen's" developer?) are reviving one of the most exceptional genre there is - space sims, which is indeed a way of having fun for not an average player base maybe, but for the player base with a deeper than regular player pockets, who is not affraid investing its money into some proper hi-tech gear, game add-ons and new content seasons to spend with long, long hours infront of monitor or with their headset mounted...

To be honest, I think Elite Dangerous and Frontier itself is only having their best years before them, as the road they have chosen is leading them to unavoidable, spectacular, global-wide success within comming years. Those poor kids playing along now have no idea yet, they are being taken on this groundbreaking trip which only have started now

How to say...? "It's good time for us to be alive Commander!"

Thank you for this mature convo Windscreen Smudge. Was a pleasure. Goin' sleep now I'm affraid

I'm pretty miffed with how FDev has been handling their position in the VR market.

They're one of the best experiences out there for VR, yet they did nothing to market themselves as such when the Vive and Oculus were launching. All of their VR marketing happened last year when the Rift was still a pre-order to get a crappy beta product niche of a niche.

Take the Money that was spent on packaging Arena as a standalone product and launching it on Steam and XB1, put that into VR marketing to ride on the coat-tails of the launch of the Headsets and ED would have seen a very decent spike in popularity. Not just from headset owners but people who merely intend to own a headset someday.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

LOL. You lot are the same bright sparks who declared E: D dead on arrival when 2.0 hit. Yet the game is still selling, across multiple platforms, 6 months later. Also, 2.1 saw the number of users grow by *thousands*, even just going on your beloved steam stats. Seriously, do you ever get tired of being WRONG all the time? As for direction, you whiny cry-babies don't seem to have any DIRECTION at all.....beyond wanting a game that rewards grinders with an "I WIN" button. Now, stop trolling and go play some No Man's Sky.....oops, that's a bit of a sore point for you trolls, isn't it?

I really hope when NMS comes out, lot of people feeling that ED is not for them will move on to try NMS - I really wish them well, it is just a game, not a battle ground, if they can't be happy with this game, I hope they find enjoyment somewhere else.

But I expect lot of them come back discovering that NMS is not the game they want...and ED will again will be field of complains. I hope I am wrong.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Not a huge amount of people playing/watching the game on Twitch either. However, I'm afraid the people on these forums won't really listen/don't really care.

Sorry, but what is this "twitch" of which you speak? I watch all my E: D content on YouTube, where E related channels all have tens of thousands of subscribers.

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I really hope when NMS comes out, lot of people feeling that ED is not for them will move on to try NMS - I really wish them well, it is just a game, not a battle ground, if they can't be happy with this game, I hope they find enjoyment somewhere else.

But I expect lot of them come back discovering that NMS is not the game they want...and ED will again will be field of complains. I hope I am wrong.

I am almost certain of it. Every play-through I have seen of NMS makes it look like a cartoonish, deep space game of laser tag.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Sorry, but what is this "twitch" of which you speak? I watch all my E: D content on YouTube, where E related channels all have tens of thousands of subscribers.

Subscriber numbers are like cotton candy. All of that fluff but when you take and moosh it down to what it really is you've got about a tablespoon of sweetness.

Same thing goes for Twitch. Channels on Twitch can have 100k followers and average a viewership of 500 or less.

Regardless, ED was never going to be a great game to watch. Long periods of nothing followed by a few seconds of frantic action that's only comprehensible to people who thoroughly understand the game. Doesn't work as well as something like CS:GO where a headshot is a headshot and the interesting content is largely continuous with bite-sized intermissions.

 

[Privata]

I really hope when NMS comes out, lot of people feeling that ED is not for them will move on to try NMS - I really wish them well, it is just a game, not a battle ground, if they can't be happy with this game, I hope they find enjoyment somewhere else.

But I expect lot of them come back discovering that NMS is not the game they want...and ED will again will be field of complains. I hope I am wrong.

NMS will please the users who want an instant gratification game.
But many will still hate it and call it a grind , they will do the same with SC and other games that come out , just because space sims are like that.

A long time ago when X3 reunion came out the egosoft forums were full of users complaining calling the game slow , back then the term used was slow rather than grind... damn buzz words

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

NMS will please the users who want an instant gratification game.
But many will still hate it and call it a grind , they will do the same with SC and other games that come out , just because space sims are like that.

A long time ago when X3 reunion came out the egosoft forums were full of users complaining calling the game slow , back then the term used was slow rather than grind... damn buzz words

I am not that sure about instant gratification in NMS. Granted it will contain crafting by yourself - and lot of players will like that part of the game. But I have seen already it is quite gimmicky and reminds me of Starbound and likes. I certainly see where Hello Games go with it, and frankly I think it is winning formula for kids and youngsters. Older gamers however will find it severely lacking. And judging by fallout of delaying NMS for just 2 months (death threats, ohh yeah baby)...when 2.3 will land everyone will sing high praises for ED.

Essentially both ED and NMS are anti-goal oriented games. You can setup goals, but some of them are harder to achieve. Game is not designed around those goals. If someone wants to grind grade 5 FSD - no one can really stop him/her. But it is not exactly what game aims for.

 

[scorpyon]

Whut?!
Why would you want to play this game trhough steam when the launcher is self-sufficient?

More to the point, who in their right mind cares about Steam stats anyway?!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Whut?!
Why would you want to play this game trhough steam when the launcher is self-sufficient?

More to the point, who in their right mind cares about Steam stats anyway?!

People which desperately try to prove Engineers is badly designed and FD have to reconsider to give everyone free access to FSD Grade 5 drives or it will go bankrupt. Or drive home other criticism about ED gameplay.

 

[NMS]

To see that the "engineers" is a bad design, you just need to play it, you do not need steam for it.

 

[Arkantes]

Whut?!
Why would you want to play this game trhough steam when the launcher is self-sufficient?

Got tired of the awful download rates the vanilla launcher gave me after every new patch (seriously, some patches took well over 24 hours to download) so I linked my account to Steam as soon as it was possible.

Oh and btw, two guys on my Steam friendlist saw me playing it, got interested in the game and bought it (although they don't seem to have touched it in many months now). Steam is also a social network.

 

[Enderby]

Yeah no one cares about Steam stats! That's why this thread is only 8 pages long so far.

 

[Genxav]

I for one don't have ED on steam but i think the numbers on steam are very important and represent the performance of the game not 100% but its probably more than half the sales of the game.
just saying

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The steam release was late to the party, I suspect most who wanted Elite Dangerous, bought it well before steam was an option.

Also, the thing with Elite is.. that sometimes.. you just want to take a break, since its a never ending game. I'm only recently back from a loooong break myself, reinvigorated

Edit: Also, I have it installed via steam, but launch it standalone, so as far as steam is concerned, I'm not playing.

HALF of the PC player base bought the game on steam.

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These threads are pointless can we stop please!

Steam charts aren't a good indicator because a lot of players won't play through Steam as they take 10% of each transaction from Frontier. A lot of us are old skool veterans of Elite and Frontier II etc so we support Frontier Developments. The company is making money, the games being updated what do we need to worry about. If you want it to fail get lost we don't need negative attitudes effecting a project as big as this game. It's not finished either come back later or play World of Warcraft or pray for Scam Citizen.

I'd rather sit and enjoy the game than focus on who else is or isn't playing it. Elite is a hard as nails game it's not like others people will hate it that's their opinion and they are free to have it stop filling our forums with moans and groans.

really?

 

[bladebss]

When i play the game i look at the traffic reports as a habbit and almoste every system i go into in the bubble has had traffic in the hundreds and some times thousands. Some of the fringe systems still are largly empty but moste have around 50 in the past 24 hours.

So.. lots of people must play cus there are alot of systems. In fact i have been playing since premium beta and i see more cmdrs now than ever.

 

[Genxav]

When i play the game i look at the traffic reports as a habbit and almoste every system i go into in the bubble has had traffic in the hundreds and some times thousands. Some of the fringe systems still are largly empty but moste have around 50 in the past 24 hours.

So.. lots of people must play cus there are alot of systems. In fact i have been playing since premium beta and i see more cmdrs now than ever.

read a while back on the xbox reddit not 100% if its like that.

"Nope, just a players and duplicates. Every time you fly by, it's counted. So 40 Cobras could only be 5 people. Plus it counts for PC players as well."