It's time for a steamcharts thread!

[Bob Lighthouse]

I've never really understood the problem with this. Steam figures are not any kind of an indicator of the total number of people playing ED across all platforms. Steam figures are however a good indicator of the trending overall volume of people playing on all platforms. I've no idea how the number of FDev Launcher players stack up against the number of Steam ones, but clearly the average concurrent number of players overall is going to be higher by some margin.

It has a temporal confound so in that respect, timelines, it has a pretty serious flaw.
The degree to which that affects any conclusions is a mystery to all of us, but it's certainly there.

 

[Kaocraft]

If I had the time, I'd find all the "high numbers after an update mean nothing" quotes on the No Man's Sky thread and post them here, not because I'm anti-ED, but rather because anyone who uses one standard for their beloved game and another for their "I don't like it game" should be the ones eating their sock.

That's not directed at you, OP, just a general observation.

BTW, the only numbers that matter to me are PS4 numbers

One thing to look at is that NMS's spike lasted for about a month (roughly June 25-July 30th) before settling down to a much lower (though higher than pre-update) level. Elite's player spike is nowhere near as dramatic, but we're around 20 days into it. I'll be interested to see if the uptick holds over time, or if it drops back down again, and if it drops back down, whether it goes all the way down to pre-patch levels or settles at a new, higher plateau. If the long term result of the patch is a sustained net increase in player activity then I'd call that a win. Also worth noting that last year Elite had an uptick during roughly the same period by roughly the same amount. It held until around April and dropped to some of the lowest monthly player numbers we've seen since launch. So uh I guess we'll see.

 

[StuartGT]

One thing to look at is that NMS's spike lasted for about a month (roughly June 25-July 30th) before settling down to a much lower (though higher than pre-update) level.

While I agree with much of your post, where does this "June 25th" come from? NMS's Next launched on 24th July.

Here's some graphs and data

NMS' spike, which began on 24th July (launchday of Next update):

The peak of 97.7k is on 29th July. Sixteen days later (14th Aug) player peaks had dropped by 70% to 29,143.

Elite's player spike is nowhere near as dramatic, but we're around 20 days into it.

Elite's spike began on 12th Dec (day after 3.3's unstable-servers launch):

The peak of 13,832 was on 16th Dec. As you say: twenty days later (today) player peaks have dropped by 9% to 12,588.

I'll be interested to see if the uptick holds over time, or if it drops back down again, and if it drops back down, whether it goes all the way down to pre-patch levels or settles at a new, higher plateau. If the long term result of the patch is a sustained net increase in player activity then I'd call that a win. Also worth noting that last year Elite had an uptick during roughly the same period by roughly the same amount. It held until around April and dropped to some of the lowest monthly player numbers we've seen since launch. So uh I guess we'll see.

Fully agree - every January since launch has seen higher Steam monthly averages

Edit: i've changed the graphs to be the same 1-month timeframe.

 

[Tifu]

 

[Chaparral]

The most interesting thing about your post is that you completely missed the point.

PS

Sorry, I am not entirely fair.

I never quite understood why people conflated steam players with the entire player base.

I never quite understood why people conflated steam players playing at a given moment with the total number of players playing the game over a 24 hour or weekly or monthly period.

I never quite understood why people completely dismissed steam numbers as being completely valueless when upticks matched weekends, patches, updates and goldrushes - and down ticks matched nerfs, and extended dryspells between patches.

I never quite understood why people do their best to attack others that are trying to make rational sense of the meager data available to the players about people playing the game.

Oh well, to each his own.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Its good for frontier that there's more people playing, but ultimately who cares?

I get it for the other space game, that people may have spent tens of thousands of dollars to buy their copy, and yet the delivery is still at ransom to the games public popularity..

But for elite looking at the sales of jurassic world evolution might be a better indicator of the future of elite (which also seemed to have done well during the sale).

(I did my part, i bought zoo tycoon ultimate animal collection ive got history with jpog that im not going to spoil on jwe).

Also, while i spent more than i was happy with on ship skins given my personal review of 3.3, i did hold back a bit. Of course i don't matter, but if i exist there's probably more of me. That much i can't avoid

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Its good for frontier that there's more people playing, but ultimately who cares?

I get it for the other space game, that people may have spent tens of thousands of dollars to buy their copy, and yet the delivery is still at ransom to the games public popularity..

But for elite looking at the sales of jurassic world evolution might be a better indicator of the future of elite (which also seemed to have done well during the sale).

(I did my part, i bought zoo tycoon ultimate animal collection ive got history with jpog that im not going to spoil on jwe).

Also, while i spent more than i was happy with on ship skins given my personal review of 3.3, i did hold back a bit. Of course i don't matter, but if i exist there's probably more of me. That much i can't avoid

FDev care and in some respect I care. The more people playing that means that more people will likely buy the next expansion which then also means more funds for further updates down the line such as earthlikes and ambulation. If not enough people buy the next expansion, that means no more expansions and that will likely lead to the end of the game. Personally, that is not something I want to see.

Games like Jurassic World will likely be funding other projects. ED needs to stand on its own if it is going to continue to move forward.

 

[Stigbob]

Its good for frontier that there's more people playing, but ultimately who cares?

The forum undead, good things and positivity burn them like sunlight.

 

[babelfisch]

I never quite understood why people conflated steam players with the entire player base.

I never quite understood why people conflated steam players playing at a given moment with the total number of players playing the game over a 24 hour or weekly or monthly period.

I never quite understood why people completely dismissed steam numbers as being completely valueless when upticks matched weekends, patches, updates and goldrushes - and down ticks matched nerfs, and extended dryspells between patches.

I never quite understood why people do their best to attack others that are trying to make rational sense of the meager data available to the players about people playing the game.

Oh well, to each his own.

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

 

[gooddoc]

I still can't see why posters keep using these Steam stats to try & show anything of meaning.

THE GAME IS NOT SOLELY SOLD THROUGH STEAM......SO ANY STATISTICS ARE INACURATE AND MEANINGLESS!!!!

 

[babelfisch]

I still can't see why posters keep using these Steam stats to try & show anything of meaning.

THE GAME IS NOT SOLELY SOLD THROUGH STEAM......SO ANY STATISTICS ARE INACURATE AND MEANINGLESS!!!!

I believe everybody knows that.

 

[gooddoc]

I believe everybody knows that.

Yet players will keep posting this ficticous drivvle on these forums....

 

[babelfisch]

Yet players will keep posting this ficticous drivvle on these forums....

Who?

 

[Taimaru]

When I get up in the morning and decide which game I want to play, I don't base my decision on the number of people playing, I base it on whether I enjoy playing the game or not.

So statistics are irrelevant to me and I'm guessing also for 97.2% of the players...

 

[Rafe Zetter]

If I had the time, I'd find all the "high numbers after an update mean nothing" quotes on the No Man's Sky thread and post them here, not because I'm anti-ED, but rather because anyone who uses one standard for their beloved game and another for their "I don't like it game" should be the ones eating their sock.

That's not directed at you, OP, just a general observation.

BTW, the only numbers that matter to me are PS4 numbers

I made a post elsewhere that echoes what you've said but it was more to do with the OP's "yay ED has never been more popular" coz steam said so - yet steam charts only get used when it makes ED look GOOD.

When someone else shows a chart that makes ED look bad they say "ahh, well you see now, the steam charts are wrong and dont show the TRUE story, it's all biased, blah blah etc etc".

and yeah high numbers after an update DO mean nothing because a significant portion of those are RETURNING accounts who are curious - some MIGHT stay, other's won't.

It's also an extremely interesting side note that I guesstimated ED's all time high, 15,000 and I was only a few thousand out, which is still only HALF Eve Online's DAILY NORMAL NUMBERS - 32,000

The thread in question was crowing ED was BEATING Eve onlines numbers by a large margin - which could not be further from the truth and NEVER will be.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Steamcharts are all well and good but you know that for every 1000 players listed at least 10 times that amount are (probably) playing on the other platforms including the non steam PC players such as myself !

I mean look how long it took for the entire human occupied bubbles' planets to be fully mapped. Over a million in just 48 hours ! (Hopefully FD will release the true stats)

TEN TIMES?

TEN?

lol talk about exaggeration

are you seruously trying to tell me ED's highest ever count is 180,000? When the gnosis incident of just 11,000 people CRASHED THE SERVERS?

get real.

Just shows how far some fanbois will go to lie and falsely promote ED's superiority.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

So when the numbers are up Steam charts have value, but when numbers are down Steam charts have no value. Hmmm. Where's Eagleboy - like to see what he has to say about these numbers.

It's clear that this last patch has been a big positive for the game.

Please read my comment regarding the "curious about the update" RETURNING accounts who may or may not continue playing for any significant time afterwards.

It's a blip, they always happen, they signify nothing provable by us either way, but those that claim this is proof the game is stronger than it ever was, are doing all players a disservice because it promotes a false sense of security, without any information more accurate than biased uninformed speculation.

Lots of companies throughout history and certainly in more recent years have been guilty of making false statements regarding the health of the company - I'm not saying FDEev is in trouble (although the -61% share crash is pretty indicative) - but saying "YAY the game is fine, GREAT even, healthy as an Ox" without FACTS, is dangerous and often counterproductive.

The ONLY hard fact we know about the population of the game in recent times (as given by FDev) was that the gnosis incident had more than 11,000 concurrent accounts and it crashed the servers at that time.

ELEVEN THOUSAND majorwotsname - NOT ONE HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND according to his "there are ten times as many players on other platforms outside steam".

 

[Rafe Zetter]

BTW, before anyone complains that I am shamelessly positive about a mostly meaningless chart, here is what I said in a different recent thread:


Now if someone dares to argue against that using steam numbers he should better be prepared for pages of circular and senseless discussion, because I am not known to give up easily on silly arguments,

Where do I sign up?

 

[Stigbob]

Please read my comment regarding the "curious about the update" RETURNING accounts who may or may not continue playing for any significant time afterwards.

It's a blip, they always happen, they signify nothing provable by us either way, but those that claim this is proof the game is stronger than it ever was, are doing all players a disservice because it promotes a false sense of security, without any information more accurate than biased uninformed speculation.

Lots of companies throughout history and certainly in more recent years have been guilty of making false statements regarding the health of the company - I'm not saying FDEev is in trouble (although the -61% share crash is pretty indicative) - but saying "YAY the game is fine, GREAT even, healthy as an Ox" without FACTS, is dangerous and often counterproductive.

The ONLY hard fact we know about the population of the game in recent times (as given by FDev) was that the gnosis incident had more than 11,000 concurrent accounts and it crashed the servers at that time.

ELEVEN THOUSAND majorwotsname - NOT ONE HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND according to his "there are ten times as many players on other platforms outside steam".

ED isn't doomed Rafe, even if you don't like it.

 

[babelfisch]

I made a post elsewhere that echoes what you've said but it was more to do with the OP's "yay ED has never been more popular" coz steam said so - yet steam charts only get used when it makes ED look GOOD.

That's not true. Actually it's the other way around, some people always claim that the game is dying and doomed because steam numbers are lower than before and I tell them that this always happens between major updates and that the numbers will go up again. They never believe me and say they would eat their socks if the game isn't dying and yet here we are, the game is not dead.

When someone else shows a chart that makes ED look bad they say "ahh, well you see now, the steam charts are wrong and dont show the TRUE story, it's all biased, blah blah etc etc".

If you would read the thread you would realise that I said at least 3 times how Steam numbers are mostly silly and meaningless, but you rather decide to make up crap about me.

and yeah high numbers after an update DO mean nothing because a significant portion of those are RETURNING accounts who are curious - some MIGHT stay, other's won't.

Of course, nobody says something different.

It's also an extremely interesting side note that I guesstimated ED's all time high, 15,000 and I was only a few thousand out, which is still only HALF Eve Online's DAILY NORMAL NUMBERS - 32,000

The thread in question was crowing ED was BEATING Eve onlines numbers by a large margin - which could not be further from the truth and NEVER will be.

Well that's the point where you would need to consider other platforms, anyway I don't believe it was me who made such a claim.