What happened?

[WPNSQD]

https://steamcharts.com/app/1361210

[astgdzfgdsg]

1. Fatshark is a dysfunctional company who makes content too slowly and makes poor decisions.

2. The game was released a year too early and was disappointing in a number of ways, underperforming expectations based on vermintide 1&2 and darktide's hyped potential.

First impressions are very important for game releases, and Darktide blew it. To recover anything like its launch player base is going to require Fatshark to stop being so dysfunctional and slow and for some really really big stuff to happen with the game.

Can Fatshark do that? ...Doubtful.

So that small playerbase will just be the state of things from now on.

[Malidictus]

What am I looking at? Based on Steam Charts, nothing appears to have happened at all. What are you seeing that needs addressing?

[sergantuss]

1. ♥♥♥♥ optimisation(that randomly become better or worse after each update-right now its a deep ♥♥♥♥)
2. ♥♥♥♥ servers
3. same looking maps
4. 0 content worth of *this is a live service game so 70$ is good price*
5. ♥♥♥♥ balance of weapons

this game legit is a big pile of ♥♥♥♥ that was droped into the mouth of ppl who have such a hope in this devs.

im surprised this garbo somehow jumped back to 5k players.

will be rly surprised if they will not drop development after like 6 month

[Noodlesocks]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

What am I looking at? Based on Steam Charts, nothing appears to have happened at all. What are you seeing that needs addressing?

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

That's pretty consistent for Live Services, I thought. Maybe not quite to that extent, sure, but player numbers are typically always higher right after launch and drop off sharply afterwards to a stable state. Darktide's stable state appears to be ~5000 concurrent. That's pretty low, but the game is also in a pretty sorry state.

Look at the history of Vermintide 2. It launched at 30 000 concurrent, then dropped to 5000 concurrent within two months. It proceeded to hover around 2000-4000 concurrent for pretty much its entire lifespan aside from a major boost in November of 2022 (so when Darktide marketing kicked up into high gear). It's gone back towards its stable state of 4000 or so concurrent.

While this doesn't hold true for larger games, most mid-range games (which this is, despite the hype) tend to get a massive influx of players on release which very quickly drops to whatever stable state they can manage. New updates and giveaways push the numbers up, but they quickly drop back down.

Again - Darktide's drop is notably more significant than those of others, but I personally chalk that up to massive hype followed by an atrociously bad release.

[Siphon2012]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

What am I looking at? Based on Steam Charts, nothing appears to have happened at all. What are you seeing that needs addressing?

You never seen a Steam Chart of the player base per year or so? It shows how low the player base is now.

[Siphon2012]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

That's pretty consistent for Live Services, I thought. Maybe not quite to that extent, sure, but player numbers are typically always higher right after launch and drop off sharply afterwards to a stable state. Darktide's stable state appears to be ~5000 concurrent. That's pretty low, but the game is also in a pretty sorry state.

Look at the history of Vermintide 2. It launched at 30 000 concurrent, then dropped to 5000 concurrent within two months. It proceeded to hover around 2000-4000 concurrent for pretty much its entire lifespan aside from a major boost in November of 2022 (so when Darktide marketing kicked up into high gear). It's gone back towards its stable state of 4000 or so concurrent.

While this doesn't hold true for larger games, most mid-range games (which this is, despite the hype) tend to get a massive influx of players on release which very quickly drops to whatever stable state they can manage. New updates and giveaways push the numbers up, but they quickly drop back down.

Again - Darktide's drop is notably more significant than those of others, but I personally chalk that up to massive hype followed by an atrociously bad release.

Nah, that is not consistent at all for Live Services. There are plenty of live service games, that do not have lose 90% of their customers.

[HashSlingingSlasher]

According to people that crush and snort cope, loosing 95% of players is a normal thing that doesn't mean anything. I'm so sad these people just don't live in reality

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Originally posted by Malidictus:

What am I looking at? Based on Steam Charts, nothing appears to have happened at all. What are you seeing that needs addressing?

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

Lets go through the list, shall we? Which list? This one: https://gameranx.com/features/id/282400/article/10-best-new-fps-games-of-2022/

Metal Hellsinger: https://steamcharts.com/app/1061910#1y
Released in Septemper... 2600 players played on release, 200 do now.

Prodeus: https://steamcharts.com/app/964800#1y
Released in Septemper of 2022... 716 players played on release, about 55 now.

Cultic: https://steamcharts.com/app/1684930#All
Released to 670 players, 50 are still playing.

The Entropy Center: https://steamcharts.com/app/1730590#All
Released to 594, went down to 50, released a level editor just recently and is up to 320 now.

Blood West: https://steamcharts.com/app/1587130#All
Released to 190, went up in the middle briefly to 240 and is at 50 now.

Mightnight Ghosthunt: https://steamcharts.com/app/915810#All
Released to 4800 people, dropped to 150, had a content drop that spiked to 2400 which dropped to 150, and now just had another content drop, which brought back 1700 players.

And because i am bored i am going to stop here, but you can go through the rest of the list. It will soon become clear that loosing 90% of a playerbase is normal for a FPS game, with them only returning briefly after major content drops.

I think on the list above only Destiny 2 is consistent in that it keeps at least half of the player base on steam. With 295k players dropping down to 75k and going up again. Which i believe the live service model provides for that Fatshark has put on hold and probably will resume in may with the content drops.

Long story short.. the behavior is normal and a "what happened" question is only really warranted should nobody return after the may content drop.

Originally posted by HashSlingingSlasher:

According to people that crush and snort cope, loosing 95% of players is a normal thing that doesn't mean anything. I'm so sad these people just don't live in reality

Then please, enlighten us. Given that this seems to be the fate for the vast majority of FPS games, which you can track through Steam Charts..

I am really curious how you will not rely on a few exceptions to say otherwise, given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

But hey, lets claim its "cope-ium" instead of facts, because it suits your narrative more.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by HashSlingingSlasher:

According to people that crush and snort cope, loosing 95% of players is a normal thing that doesn't mean anything. I'm so sad these people just don't live in reality

I mean, feel free to go through the list yourself. Darktide's numbers are worse than Vermintide 2's in terms of player dropoff, but not really by that much. That's not GOOD, but it hardly merits special explanation. The game had a lot of hype and a ♥♥♥♥ launch. I'd personally be shocked if the numbers didn't look like that.

[Hexagoros]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

That's pretty consistent for Live Services, I thought. Maybe not quite to that extent, sure, but player numbers are typically always higher right after launch and drop off sharply afterwards to a stable state. Darktide's stable state appears to be ~5000 concurrent. That's pretty low, but the game is also in a pretty sorry state.

That's some bs right there.

If Live Service games 'routinely' lost over 90% of their players in less thatn SIX MONTHS, Live Service would have died out long ago.

Originally posted by Ishan451:

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

Lets go through the list, shall we? Which list? This one: https://gameranx.com/features/id/282400/article/10-best-new-fps-games-of-2022/

Metal Hellsinger: https://steamcharts.com/app/1061910#1y
Released in Septemper... 2600 players played on release, 200 do now.

Prodeus: https://steamcharts.com/app/964800#1y
Released in Septemper of 2022... 716 players played on release, about 55 now.

Cultic: https://steamcharts.com/app/1684930#All
Released to 670 players, 50 are still playing.

The Entropy Center: https://steamcharts.com/app/1730590#All
Released to 594, went down to 50, released a level editor just recently and is up to 320 now.

Blood West: https://steamcharts.com/app/1587130#All
Released to 190, went up in the middle briefly to 240 and is at 50 now.

Mightnight Ghosthunt: https://steamcharts.com/app/915810#All
Released to 4800 people, dropped to 150, had a content drop that spiked to 2400 which dropped to 150, and now just had another content drop, which brought back 1700 players.

And because i am bored i am going to stop here, but you can go through the rest of the list. It will soon become clear that loosing 90% of a playerbase is normal for a FPS game, with them only returning briefly after major content drops.

Why are you looking at only the nichest of niche games?

Why not look at something like Warframe or Destiny - the games FS themselves compared Darktide to? You know, games that are actually Live Service and mainstream?

Oh, right because Warframe and Destiny actually has a huge playerbases and would disprove your point. My bad.

[4tee]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Noodlesocks:

Game has lost 90% of it's playerbase in only 5 months.

That's pretty consistent for Live Services, I thought. Maybe not quite to that extent, sure, but player numbers are typically always higher right after launch and drop off sharply afterwards to a stable state. Darktide's stable state appears to be ~5000 concurrent. That's pretty low, but the game is also in a pretty sorry state.

Look at the history of Vermintide 2. It launched at 30 000 concurrent, then dropped to 5000 concurrent within two months. It proceeded to hover around 2000-4000 concurrent for pretty much its entire lifespan aside from a major boost in November of 2022 (so when Darktide marketing kicked up into high gear). It's gone back towards its stable state of 4000 or so concurrent.

While this doesn't hold true for larger games, most mid-range games (which this is, despite the hype) tend to get a massive influx of players on release which very quickly drops to whatever stable state they can manage. New updates and giveaways push the numbers up, but they quickly drop back down.

Again - Darktide's drop is notably more significant than those of others, but I personally chalk that up to massive hype followed by an atrociously bad release.

there you answered for yourself

[Bloodwest]

let's be real, any game which could maintain such huge online since release should be considered a great success. ~5k avg is alright

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

Originally posted by sergantuss:

1. ♥♥♥♥ optimisation(that randomly become better or worse after each update-right now its a deep ♥♥♥♥)
2. ♥♥♥♥ servers
3. same looking maps
4. 0 content worth of *this is a live service game so 70$ is good price*
5. ♥♥♥♥ balance of weapons

this game legit is a big pile of ♥♥♥♥ that was droped into the mouth of ppl who have such a hope in this devs.

im surprised this garbo somehow jumped back to 5k players.

will be rly surprised if they will not drop development after like 6 month

RIP for paying $70. They finessed you real guud. :D

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Hexagoros:

If Live Service games 'routinely' lost over 90% of their players in less thatn SIX MONTHS, Live Service would have died out long ago.

You're assuming that the original Launch player base is sustainable. It almost never is, especially for multiplayer games.

Again, look at Vermintide 2[steamcharts.com]. It launched at 30 622.8 average concurrent in March of 2018. In August of 2018 (which is 6 months later), it's sitting at 2,673.7 average concurrent. That's ~8.73% of the original launch player base, meaning that Vermintide 2 lost 91.27% of its player base within the first 6 months of release.

Also, I did not pick an outlier month. For the entire period of May 2018 to October 2022, Vermintide averaged ~3845.41 concurrent players. Sometiems it's as high as 6000, sometimes it's as low as 2000, mostly it's 2000-4000. Darktide is currently sitting on 5000 average concurrent players.

Unless you want to argue that Vermintide 2 is dead and has been since 2018, I don't see what you can consider an outlier.