Are bots stuffing the playercounts on Steamcharts?

[Laina]

I'm beginning to wonder considering such a low number of players in according to Teamwork TF's general stats (11,259) compared to the 77,604 on Steamcharts. How do you have 60k clients open that don't even play the game?

[Lord Vader]

If I'm not mistaken, most are trading bots.

[Nouvanity]

They are idle bots on private servers. Teamwork can't track them but they are able to idle for items/cases

[The deadly Cutsman]

Yes, bots are considered players

[Cat_Soldier]

Yes. Steam charts takes into account every account playing tf2 (even if it’s on private servers or on the menu idling) while teamwork.tf counts everyone playing in a public server and valve matchmaking server

[Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC]

Teamwork does not share their source for devaluing non-human players. Which is odd given the data niche they attempt to fill. And this playerbase is idiotic enough to gleefully swallow anything posed as fact without supporting evidence backing it.

Its definitely a lower number than steamdb or charts advertise. But I question if its as low as Teamwork claims.

[Cat_Soldier]

Originally posted by Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC:

Teamwork does not share their source for devaluing non-human players. Which is odd given the data niche they attempt to fill. And this playerbase is idiotic enough to gleefully swallow anything posed as fact without supporting evidence backing it.

It’s definitely a lower number than steamdb or charts advertise. But I question if its as low as Teamwork claims.

Pretty sure how Teamwork works is it takes into account the counts of all public servers that are able to be visible, and just sums it all up. Of course this leaves behind a lot of players who are on the menu queuing for the game or editing their loadout and players in private servers, however teamworks player count is a bit closer to the actual count of the game. Estimated say around 20k players is a reasonable estimate give or take

[$hotcaller]

The difference isn't all bots. Yes there are trading bots and the cheating bots making up Steam's numbers, but Steam counts accounts that have the game open. Teamwork counts accounts that are on servers (which is also made of up bots). People who have the game open but are not playing on a server get counted but that does not make them bots.

Bottom line is that real people who are actually playing the game is low, my guess would be a peak of around 6K-8K and around 20K at best in total on a good day. Community servers seem to peak at around 3K on NA servers and 5K on EU servers. So my very unscientific estimates are a player base in a day between 20K to 30K.

It's pathetic to me that people would invest effort into ruining an insignificant game, but they are inbreds so...

[The deadly Cutsman]

Originally posted by südenim:

Bottom line is that real people who are actually playing the game is low, my guess would be a peak of around 6K-8K and around 20K at best in total on a good day. Which makes it pathetic to me that people would invest effort into ruining an insignificant game, but they are inbreds so...

The size of the game doesn't matter, what matters is they get the laughs they look for. TF2 is the lolcow of games.

[Laina]

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier:

Originally posted by Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC:

Teamwork does not share their source for devaluing non-human players. Which is odd given the data niche they attempt to fill. And this playerbase is idiotic enough to gleefully swallow anything posed as fact without supporting evidence backing it.

It’s definitely a lower number than steamdb or charts advertise. But I question if its as low as Teamwork claims.

Pretty sure how Teamwork works is it takes into account the counts of all public servers that are able to be visible, and just sums it all up. Of course this leaves behind a lot of players who are on the menu queuing for the game or editing their loadout and players in private servers, however teamworks player count is a bit closer to the actual count of the game. Estimated say around 20k players is a reasonable estimate give or take

Plus even if there are a bunch of players in completely private, invisible servers I sincerely doubt that there's 70k of them at a time.

[Mina]

Trade, idle bots

[Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC]

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier:

Originally posted by Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC:

Teamwork does not share their source for devaluing non-human players. Which is odd given the data niche they attempt to fill. And this playerbase is idiotic enough to gleefully swallow anything posed as fact without supporting evidence backing it.

It’s definitely a lower number than steamdb or charts advertise. But I question if its as low as Teamwork claims.

Pretty sure how Teamwork works is it takes into account the counts of all public servers that are able to be visible, and just sums it all up. Of course this leaves behind a lot of players who are on the menu queuing for the game or editing their loadout and players in private servers, however teamworks player count is a bit closer to the actual count of the game. Estimated say around 20k players is a reasonable estimate give or take

You would think a site like theirs would have the data sources posted front and center on their homepage rather than a silent "trust me bro". But yet...

[Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC]

Originally posted by Laina:

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier:

Pretty sure how Teamwork works is it takes into account the counts of all public servers that are able to be visible, and just sums it all up. Of course this leaves behind a lot of players who are on the menu queuing for the game or editing their loadout and players in private servers, however teamworks player count is a bit closer to the actual count of the game. Estimated say around 20k players is a reasonable estimate give or take

Plus even if there are a bunch of players in completely private, invisible servers I sincerely doubt that there's 70k of them at a time.

Nobody is arguing that there is actually 70k active players. I think we all know there is not. My gripe is when someone creates an entire site based around data, they need to provide verifiable sources to back their claims.

[Cat_Soldier]

Originally posted by Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC:

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier:

Pretty sure how Teamwork works is it takes into account the counts of all public servers that are able to be visible, and just sums it all up. Of course this leaves behind a lot of players who are on the menu queuing for the game or editing their loadout and players in private servers, however teamworks player count is a bit closer to the actual count of the game. Estimated say around 20k players is a reasonable estimate give or take

You would think a site like theirs would have the data sources posted front and center on their homepage rather than a silent "trust me bro". But yet...

That’s true. Really wish they would describe the way they count their data rather than having a lot of people either have to look deeper into the site or just believe in the “trust me bro”

[Catter]

Old news, you watched the Zesty video

[Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC]

Originally posted by Cat_Soldier:

Originally posted by Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC:

You would think a site like theirs would have the data sources posted front and center on their homepage rather than a silent "trust me bro". But yet...

That’s true. Really wish they would describe the way they count their data rather than having a lot of people either have to look deeper into the site or just believe in the “trust me bro”

The monthly active users of TF2 (including bots) is less than 0.00085% of Valve's active monthly user count. So its probably just silly of me to care either way.