Steam Numbers Now

Nadreck

N
I bought ED through Steam, but haven't played it through Steam for ages, hardly at all since I discovered that it ran just fine without.

I no longer clash with whatever my kids might be doing on Steam, and the two alts that I bought in a Frontier sale weren't through Steam. I expect DW2 created a bigger demand for alt accounts, my main CMDR is still way out in the Acheron sector.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Old Duck said:
See my post above about dead vs. "sleeping". I just finished Rise of the Tomb Raider (excellent game), a game that is arguably in or even past maintenance mode, yet here I am playing it for the first time and enjoying it greatly. I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but I assume the servers are still online for it. Point being, a game is only dead when the parent company pulls the plug on the servers, like my beloved Paragon.

Still, I do feel ED might be in "nap time" mode, not only due to a lull in new content, but for the simple fact that summer is upon us. I haven't played for more than an a few hours since late March. I even moved ED to my external drive. I yawn at most of the threads being posted lately (you know things are slow when "Let's have sex with the Thargoids" is the most popular topic). I know ED is far from dead, but it does feel sleepy.

I suppose you can say, "Steam numbers are great if you consider Old Duck is bored with the game and the forum." LOL 🤷‍♂️

ps - while ED / Frontier sleeps, the bed bugs ARE biting! :mad:
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If Elite is in maintenance mode (or nap time) is a very subjective consideration. It might be for you while it isn't for others.
Fact is, steam charts imply that the game is as popular as it used to be 5 years ago at release. Which is not very popular but okay for a niche game.
That the game isn't dead yet suggests FDEV is doing something right (or that we are easy to please), despite hundred of steam charts threads claiming that the game is almost dead now.

In the last weeks I've almost played as much as I did in 2015 while I didn't play much in 2017-2018. That's not because I wasn't happy (or cared) about the amount and quality of new content but simply because there have been other games I wanted to play. And I also got a daughter and built a house. Currently I am not playing much again because I prefer to practice playing drums.

Point is, I am not sure if there is always a correlation between updates, general happiness, specific issues and steam charts. Sure, if a huge update drops there are more people trying it out, but that doesn't tell us anything apart from the obvious.

The only 'useful' information I get from steamcharts is to see if the game is dead yet. It isn't. The death of Elite isn't even trending. ;)
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Vasco Sapien said:
Can Fdev maintain player interest until 2020?
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Even if they don't, why wouldn't it go up again in 2020? It's not like we are doing anything useful for them apart from creating server costs and paying with the occasional paintjob for it.

There wasn't a major release in 5 months and yet the game is just as popular as it used to be, with almost twice as much players compared to the lowest recorded number in early 2016. That wasn't the death of Elite either.
I guess the numbers will slightly go down with the occasional bump at the content updates. Don't know why this should be a problem though.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Viajero said:
The numbers in Steam suggest that at the moment that is not yet the case though (unless you meant it for your personal stance).
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More from a personal perception based on forum topics, people who used to be active in the forums going quiet recently, etc. Everything just feels "meh" lately around here, but this very well could be personal burnout / boredom. 🤷‍♂️
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
babelfisch said:
If Elite is in maintenance mode (or nap time) is a very subjective consideration. It might be for you while it isn't for others.
Fact is, steam charts imply that the game is as popular as it used to be 5 years ago at release. Which is not very popular but okay for a niche game.
That the game isn't dead yet suggests FDEV is doing something right (or that we are easy to please), despite hundred of steam charts threads claiming that the game is almost dead now.

In the last weeks I've almost played as much as I did in 2015 while I didn't play much in 2017-2018. That's not because I wasn't happy (or cared) about the amount and quality of new content but simply because there have been other games I wanted to play. And I also got a daughter and built a house. Currently I am not playing much again because I prefer to practice playing drums.

Point is, I am not sure if there is always a correlation between updates, general happiness, specific issues and steam charts. Sure, if a huge update drops there are more people trying it out, but that doesn't tell us anything apart from the obvious.

The only 'useful' information I get from steamcharts is to see if the game is dead yet. It isn't. The death of Elite isn't even trending. ;)
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We've got 'maintenance mode' in a 'steam numbers' thread.

Great, now I need 'game's broken' to complete my bingo card.
 

Dutchman141

Dutchman141
It's weird though.
My friends list on Xbox are almost all exclusively people I added through playing ED.
Only a couple of them post some screens from ED so now and then, most of them are playing other games now.
They were all very enthusiastic ED players, somewhere around 200 of them.
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
I think they have to split it in 4.

Steam users
Frontier Launch
X box Players
Play Station.

So could it be around 13,000 16,000 players overall at one time?
 

Vasco Sapien

Vasco Sapien
babelfisch said:
Even if they don't, why wouldn't it go up again in 2020? It's not like we are doing anything useful for them apart from creating server costs and paying with the occasional paintjob for it.

There wasn't a major release in 5 months and yet the game is just as popular as it used to be, with almost twice as much players compared to the lowest recorded number in early 2016. That wasn't the death of Elite either.
I guess the numbers will slightly go down with the occasional bump at the content updates. Don't know why this should be a problem though.
Click to expand...

Yeh, i guess we will have to wait and see. But up until now the quarterly updates of content where always something that the community looked forward to.
If ED was a single player game i think it would have died by now, only the most entrenched players keeping the fire. But Frontier chose to go down the Games as a service route and microtransactions becoming a means with which to make the game a money maker as the service rolled on. Officially ED has only released one paid expansion in 4.5 years (and one free (sorely needed) season that mostly served to fatten out place holder mechanics, game play loops and QOL), which isnt very great for a game as a service.
Now players have to wait 2 years for another meaningful update with no information regarding the contents of that update. When you typically look at games as a service you see those titles get updated multiple times in order to keep the player base invested otherwise interest wanes.

For me... Frontier letting us know what to expect come 2020 will keep me hanging on like a child impatiently waiting for Christmas.
But so far we have nothing to go on, and small content patches designed to help new players while us long term players grow disengaged.
 

RolloTreadway

RolloTreadway
Vasco Sapien said:
Can Fdev maintain player interest until 2020?
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As far as this specific issue goes, they don't really need to. All they need is interest in the 2020 update. There will be an expectation that some players who've not played in a while will come back - after all, people switching back and forth between their favourite games over time is entirely normal - plus, if the marketing works, a whole bunch of new players should come in (at least temporarily).
 

Vasco Sapien

Vasco Sapien
RolloTreadway said:
As far as this specific issue goes, they don't really need to. All they need is interest in the 2020 update. There will be an expectation that some players who've not played in a while will come back - after all, people switching back and forth between their favourite games over time is entirely normal - plus, if the marketing works, a whole bunch of new players should come in (at least temporarily).
Click to expand...

But maybe fewer and fewer to no microtransaction sales between now and then. With a drop in player momentum over time could this encourage Frontier and their investors to figure ED a dying duck.

playing devil's advocate here.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Average concurrent players on Steam:

May 2019: 4,552.9
May 2018: 3,820.5
May 2017: 4,349.7
May 2016: 3,068.5
May 2015: 3,522.2

The game is almost dead now.

PS
The only thing that worries me is that I haven't seen Ziggy for quite some time. Please FDEV, whatever it takes, bring Ziggy back!
 

WR3ND

WR3ND
Charts on the up in general are a good thing, Steam or otherwise. I don't always know how well the game is continuing to "trend" in the "pop," nor really care one way or the other within that context, but better numbers bode well for how well future premium expansions might do, and being an LEP owner, is naturally of some interest to me and presumably Frontier alike, as they can warrant investing resources into the game's continued development and viability, which on my behalf has already been paid for in spades.

Jenner saw fit to close the Frontier LEP thread, by the by... :p
 
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