I was wrong about games likes SCUM, Rust, DayZ...

[Col Dè Ma Ma Daqua]

Way back in 2015-17, Rust was still EA and fell hard from its peaks, down to 4k concurrent players. DayZ was a hot mess and people were playing the mod more than the Standalone version (Arma 2 Mod).
When SCUM launched it felt like an elaborate DayZ, and while it had good numbers, I could have sword after 2-3 years it had like 1k at best playerbase.
I thought the genre fizzled out, or the games just weren't good, or maybe the demand wasn't there. Even one of my fav games, Hunt Showdown had the same trajectory.

Looking today, all these games are blooming and better than ever. So I gotta ask, did the games improve, or did the interest come back? What happened?

[Deathwhisper]

Hello :),

Something like this can have different reasons. As the development of SCUM progresses, there is often a greater upswing, especially after patches, because players are keen to check out the new content.
It is also often weather conditions or other worldly effects that drive players more inwards and thus a higher level of activity appears in the different areas.

There are a lot of effects here that you would have to take into account in order to be able to show a clear line.

The survival genre in itself is still a very interesting one for many who simply want to lead a "different life" to recover from the stressful everyday life or simply out of a pure whim.

[serilium]

computer games like this are gaining popularity due to other media like movies and comic`s going woke, we as players have more freedom in this media even though we will never really be free in any game.

[Pike1263]

Originally posted by The Cunning Iligus:

Way back in 2015-17, Rust was still EA and fell hard from its peaks, down to 4k concurrent players. DayZ was a hot mess and people were playing the mod more than the Standalone version (Arma 2 Mod).
When SCUM launched it felt like an elaborate DayZ, and while it had good numbers, I could have sword after 2-3 years it had like 1k at best playerbase.
I thought the genre fizzled out, or the games just weren't good, or maybe the demand wasn't there. Even one of my fav games, Hunt Showdown had the same trajectory.

Looking today, all these games are blooming and better than ever. So I gotta ask, did the games improve, or did the interest come back? What happened?

I think the answer is pretty basic if it's not overthought. Games in this genre, notably Rust and DayZ, offer quite a bit that appeals to a variety of players and play styles. Keep in mind too that player numbers will vary especially when a game is early access and still in a development stage. Rust and DayZ were both still early access in the years you've mentioned.

Today, Rust has a lot of vanilla content and has mod support. It also has procedural generated maps, so monuments and topography get rearranged to give the illusion of a different map every wipe. It's also relatively bug free based on my experience playing. No game breakers that I'm aware of.

Despite DayZ's lack of development by BI and little vanilla content compared to Rust, it has a massive modding community that's kept that game afloat with tons of mods to choose from which include a decent selection of maps. Both Rust and DayZ offer dedicated server support.

Scum remains to be seen as it's not finished. It already has more engaging vanilla content than DayZ which is a plus. I think it will fare well if the devs can exterminate as many bugs as possible, especially the game breakers, get it well optimized, keep the engaging content coming, and get mod and dedicated server support set up. It probably wouldn't hurt if they eventually threw in a choice of maps as well, varying in size for a change of scenery. Done well, I think it has the potential to surpass it's predecessors. We'll see.

[BRlCKSHlTHOUSE]

Originally posted by ferret:

computer games like this are gaining popularity due to other media like movies and comic`s going woke, we as players have more freedom in this media even though we will never really be free in any game.

Cringe. Stop getting wound in by an 8Chan pathetic campaign.

To the topic though:
I don't think the demand magically disappeared then reappeared, it's more the offerings were lacklustre and users were diluted over various offerings they tried and gave up on. Games in this genre really thrive on having depth to them with various systems allowing you to do things in game. A lot of them, especially being from Indie studios, not only didn't have the content initially but also were riddled with bugs. When the Dayz mod hit the scene it drew in players after all kinds of different things ranging from the survival hardcore people down to the battle royal type people due to the Dayz mod being a half finished idea yet full of unique potential. Well other studios saw the demand and there was a plethora of copycats as well as games fulfilling the various niches that the mod scratched for different players.

Scum in all fairness deserves more players with it not being a laggy mess, but also was doomed to its path due to jumping on the bandwagon and not having an initial product worthy of luring in the crowds wanting more when the dayz mod floundered. Glad to see the user count has bounced up after the devs worked more on it though! But eventually they need to engage with talented modders and make modding as easy as possible along with removing bugs and adding more diverse content.