I recently mentioned the steep decline in Steam numbers as cause for concern and it was met with the usual bile and hostility from people who shout fake news at evidence they dislike (presumably the concept of analysis using a population sample was too difficult to grasp as well). So i wonder if there does exist legit player numbers anywhere? The sample suggests the player base has dropped but it would be interesting to see the whole player base numbers. Is this something that FDev releases? It's not really easy to get an idea in-game like other MMOs as players are so dispersed you can go weeks without meeting anyone. Even CGs seem to be empty these days (on PS4 anyway) aside from the odd ganker.
Data has never been released and probably will never, I usually go off of the community goal participants and estimate it from there. Gotta take a decent sample though because different attendance depending on type of CG, local weather etc.
Obviously actual player numbers will be several factors of magnitude higher but as a barometer it should be accurate(ish).
Current estimates in the past 2 weeks show around 2000 odd for the trading and combat CGs.
Going back 3 months it's about 1000 per CG.
In April there were a few thousand.
Jan/Feb/March there was a few above 6000 which is when there was a lot of thargoid stuff happening and Chapter 1.
Short answer - depends on if your glass is half full or empty:
If you are half full you'd say there's not been a decline, this is the baseline level inbetween the interest spikes we get with new content/releases
Half empty and you'd say yes there has because it dropped after the most recent updates.
Should we worry?
Not really, recently it's the biggest drop before the next update at the end of the month. We are at the lowest point before the spike again. Give it 3-4 weeks and see what happens with the new update release
