http://dbd.game/killswitch
I do not like how this game has been getting more and more strict in player expression
Comments
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Where is it written that dbd should have its player count decreasing? The major drop off point for any game is usually within the first few months after its release or major updates. The players that remain after that point are usually long term players. Look at any player retention chart, it's always a reciprocal slope. And all of that is besides the point: your original argument was about growth, not retention. The small increase blips are major DLC releases. Notice how quickly those numbers return back to where they were before, and are even getting smaller.
Comparing pandemic numbers is the only reasonable strategy in a post-pandemic world. The lockdowns allowed many people to be introduced to this game; players we would not have had if the pandemic did not happen. You can't just start comparing numbers prior to that major event because it was the catalyst that allowed dbd to have its highest player growth ever. You just got done telling me that dbd gained players between its release and 2020, which is true, but only by about 4-5 thousand players total. The pandemic alone brought almost 17 thousand players on average per month. People don't need to play 4 hours a day to be counted as a monthly player. After being introduced to the game, a good portion of those 17 thousand players have stuck with the game well into 2025. Just because they have less free time compared to the pandemic doesn't mean that they just up and vanish if they are still enjoying the game.
I gave a range between 2019 and 2020 for my estimate. Peak player count doesn't mean peak gameplay. Look at minecraft. It has become bloated with systems that do not serve it, but it currently has the highest player count it has ever had. Most people would say minecraft peaked either during the pandemic or back in 2011-2013 during its initial hype.
Perk balancing changes are different than DLC updates and "new content." In a player survey released last year, bhvr made the three distinctions: balance updates - just number tweaking, major updates - functional changes that keep with the same theme, complete overhauls - start fresh, may or may not keep previous theme. The overbrine meta could have been solved in 1 week. It requires one person to change cooldown numbers, to build the game, QA test the change, and submit the build for verification. That's because it is a balance update. That is not new content. That is not "switching it up" to provide new content for people to stay.
What study does it say that it takes longer to burn out on sports? That "truth" seems like a complete thin-air pull. If you were to argue that sports provide more physical benefits, I'd agree, but to "burn out?" How would you even quantify that?
So Bobby Fischer, one guy out of the billions of people who have lived since chess was created and modernized, was bored and made a fun party game variant of chess. That proves my point more than anything. Nobody is ditching normal chess for random chess, and I would hardly consider it "new content" to the base version of chess. Chess is still fun for those who have found it fun.
My frequency is based on a yearly basis. It's been 45 years since the three point line was added to basketball. More than half of the entire world's population hasn't lived in a world without the three point line. Would you consider changes like the three point line a frequent or common occurrence? And this point is very similar to my point about balance changes versus new content. Adding a three point line versus having more defining rules on penalties change the game in drastically different ways. Even the yearly NFL rule changes are more akin to balance tweaks rather than "content updates." I'd argue the recently added kickoff rules lean more into a partial rework, aka more like a new content change, and the majority of NFL viewers hate it in terms of entertainment. None of your examples are examples of "switch it up" content like you are describing for dbd. Marketing strategy changes is not a content update.
People can burn out from anything if they are exposed to it for too long. Burnout for dbd isn't an issue unless you are playing at least 20 hours a week. I'm not sure why you are fixated on "burnout" being such a major issue. I know a common sentiment among killer main apologists on the forums is that "survivor mains are just burnt out," no, survivor players are tired of being second rate players to killer mains, who are allowed to have killers like release legion, release kaneki, oni/legion 2v8, and metas like overbrine, chess merchant, etc. for sometimes MONTHS at a time before their concerns are addressed. However, these changes are not "switch it up" content. These changes are balancing updates because the game currently has ebbed into a very one sided state, most likely due to actual content additions like call of brine, like overcharge, like eruption, etc. Boredom is not a function of a lack of change, it is caused from overexposure to a less than ideal experience.
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Edit to add: I discuss it more below, but please explain what you mean by 'change it up'. The discussion won't be very fruitful if we have very different standards on that.
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And all of that is besides the point: your original argument was about growth, not retentionLiterally not the argument chain that happened.
The first thing to point out: I'm responding to you. I am not the originator of the argument. In my very first post to I specifically cited the claim you were making about retention that I disagreed with.
The second thing to point out: if a game has grown by even a single player, than it has obviously retained its player count, the point of disagreement.
To go through the discussion -
In my first post I claimed:
DbD hasn't just retained their players by changing it up, they grown over the years.That was one point out of four and the briefest point. Note I did not specify a year (see below).
In your next post you said:
Third, like I said, dbd has not had any significant growth since 2020.I respond:
'Significant' is incredibly subjective. Games almost always lose players over their lifespans, games that are growing at all are an extreme minority. I'm sure there are a few other examples, but games running on ~10 year old engines that have any level of player growth are all live service or MMO style games. The fact that DbD is experiencing growth at any level is rather remarkable.Please note my explanation. DbD having any growth at all is remarkable. I'm quite clear here that I'm not claiming the growth numbers have been large. Everything should be working against the game, time, competition, boredom, etc. Even slight gains at all are remarkable, especially considering the growth the game experienced compared to its original starting.
On the issue of significant you reply:
Sure, significant is a subjective word, but I'd assume that significant meant any number above 5%, which dbd's numbers are not.This confuses two issues
1: Taking into account DbD's age any type of growth is surprising and significant.
2: Ignoring the growth of the first few years. BHVR had to 'change it up' to achieve that level of growth. This is important to the discussion because as I argue in a few places people aren't opposed to the idea of changing it up, people are opposed to specific changes that have been made.
In summary: Your original argument was about retention, I was disagreeing with that. I said not only have they retained, they've grown. You might not think the growth is amazing, but I think even the small numbers of growth are bucking the expected trend
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Where is it written that dbd should have its player count decreasing? The major drop off point for any game is usually within the first few months after its release or major updatesThe history of every video game, ever. As your point out, the vast majority of games drop, most even quicker than the first few months. Games that grow a player base are a rare exception, they are almost always associated with live service or subscriptions, and even then the time frame they can maintain this is limited.
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The players that remain after that point are usually long term players. Look at any player retention chart, it's always a reciprocal slope.You talk about DLC tourists. Are they not players? Do they not exist in other games? You are discounting a whole portion of the player base.
That you talk about how these players exist proves the point that companies need to do things to attract them. We're talking about retaining players, not retaining just a specific set of players.
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Comparing pandemic numbers is the only reasonable strategy in a post-pandemic world. The lockdowns allowed many people to be introduced to this game; players we would not have had if the pandemic did not happen. You can't just start comparing numbers prior to that major event because it was the catalyst that allowed dbd to have its highest player growth ever.And you can't act like a time when the player pool was substantially larger is the same as what happens after.
You just got done telling me that dbd gained players between its release and 2020, which is true, but only by about 4-5 thousand players total.That's just not true. June 2016, 11k, February 2020 23k, that's a 100% growth.
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People don't need to play 4 hours a day to be counted as a monthly player.Wait, no, this isn't how the average monthly count works.
Steamcharts scrapes the Steam API every hour and counts the people playing. You can read about it on the about page or just look at how the numbers shift over a 24 hour period. If there is any more info about their methodology out there I'd be happy to read it.
There are ~33k people playing DbD as I type this. There were ~36k people playing a couple of hours ago. The average monthly player count is an average of how many people are playing DbD at any given time. That means the more an individual plays, the more they will be counted. If a player plays for four hours, they get counted four times.
The average monthly players is the average amount of people who are playing at any single moment of the game. Average player counts can be increased both by gaining more players or players playing more.
If you are aware of any info that this is not how Steamcharts works, or if you are using a different cite that has a different methodology, please let me know. I'm open to being wrong on this, but the Steamcharts page can cause confusion because because when they say average players they mean average concurrent players.
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Peak player count doesn't mean peak gameplay. Look at minecraft. It has become bloated with systems that do not serve it, but it currently has the highest player count it has ever had. Most people would say minecraft peaked either during the pandemic or back in 2011-2013 during its initial hype.I've only played Minecraft once for about ten minutes, but a few observations:
1: You have a lot of confidence in the opinions of what millions of players would say over two different games.
2: If more people are playing now, then that means there are a lot of players who could not have been playing during those periods (i.e. new players). This makes it impossible for them to say a former version was better.
3: Even if point 1 was true, this looks like a good indication of how people's behaviors are better indicators of how they feel then their words. Why are more people playing if they like it less? Since that time there are more games, more competition, more options. Why would even more being playing a game that they agree they like less?
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That's because it is a balance update. That is not new content. That is not "switching it up" to provide new content for people to stay.What examples are you talking about? We are multiple posts into a discussion and it seems strange to have not brought up earlier 'well, when I say change, I don't mean all of these examples of change, I only mean this limited set of changes'.
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What study does it say that it takes longer to burn out on sports? That "truth" seems like a complete thin-air pull. If you were to argue that sports provide more physical benefits, I'd agree, but to "burn out?" How would you even quantify that?Let's start with the obvious fact:
Not a single video game, ever, has achieved the levels of sustainable player retention that sports have.
That's just a fact that undermines your entire argument. Sports and video games don't work the same. Trying to say that a video game could just be like a sport, even presuming your earlier argument about sports not changing is true, then why has not a single video game managed that feat?
Now I then discuss why I don't think they behave the same way. You're welcome to disagree with those reasons (though just saying they are a thin-air pull isn't actually explaining why or recognizing the differences), but the underlying fact remains is that they don't.
So Bobby Fischer, one guy out of the billions of people who have lived since chess was created and modernized, was bored and made a fun party game variant of chess.Your argument relies heavily 'Skyrim', a single, outlier of a video game that I don't think even backs up your point. What is your standard for how many examples I need to provide in contrast to your own?
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None of your examples are examples of "switch it up" content like you are describing for dbd. Marketing strategy changes is not a content update.As I said earlier, you're drawing a thread that basically entails 'changes I'm okay with or are supported don't count'.
Also are we discussing people who play a sport, or people who watch a sport. Because we seem to be discussing the latter, in which case marketing content and presentation changes are significant content updates if we're making a comparison between sports and video games.
I'm not sure why you are fixated on "burnout" being such a major issue.I'm talking about becoming bored and burnout, with burnout being the more extreme stage of the former.
And I'm discussing them because they are completely normal human behaviors. As I've said, I'm not aware of a single video game that has managed to overcome this, the ones that hold it off the longest are the ones with change.
Post edited by crogers271 on0 -
#justiceforoldfreddy
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Literally not the argument chain that happened.
In my first post I claimed:
DbD hasn't just retained their players by changing it up, they grown over the years.That was one point out of four and the briefest point. Note I did not specify a year (see below).
It was in your original argument, one of your 4 main points. You even quoted it yourself. Everyone can see it. It was a part of your argument. And even besides the point, in which I will elaborate further, I said that dbd does not retain players. The DLC tourists are a temporary influx of players which quickly leave after their DLC is over.
The second thing to point out: if a game has grown by even a single player, than it has obviously retained its player count, the point of disagreement.
This is extremely pedantic and completely disingenuous to the thread at large. Growth would signify a continuous increase in player numbers to a significant degree (more than 5%). Please explain to me how out of the past 58 months since June/July 2020, only 17 months had player numbers higher than the average player count for July 2020 (40,500 players)? Please also explain to me how out of those 17 months, 9 of them had a player increase at least 5% higher than July 2020's numbers? 7 out of those 9 months were the direct result of the first Resident Evil DLC releasing (June 2021), but notice how by that December, the numbers quickly retreated to that of July 2020, even dipping lower after that; most likely due to the DLC tourists finally being done with the game, and also pain resonance being added with the Artist chapter.
So to recap: Lasting significant growth? Nonexistent. Temporary number padding? Absolutely. Since the pandemic began, there have been 3 separate instances where the average player count for a period of time was significantly higher (>5%) than June/July of 2020: the first Resident Evil DLC, where after 6 months, the majority of those players (or a combination of existing and DLC tourists) left; the infamous Patch 6.1.0 in June/July of 2022 (PTB and Live), that only lasted that month; and the D&D DLC, most likely due to Stranger Things' D&D influence, and Vecna being a long desired addition to the roster. That bump only lasted one month. So no, there is no lasting significant growth. Did you know based on that same data, 34 out of the past 58 months saw significant (>5%) decrease in numbers lower than the average player count of June/July 2020? Almost 59% of the time since the beginning of the pandemic. Hence my stance. DbD is losing players more than it retains them. Having a DLC release to pad player numbers temporarily doesn't mean those players are retained. The core gameplay is losing players at a rate that any DLC release cannot make up for. Those are the facts.
The history of every video game, ever. As your point out, the vast majority of games drop, most even quicker than the first few months.
Did you read the second part of my statement? The players that remain are long term players. It's a reciprocal slope. We are at the point where the slope is still negative, but close to zero where players are hopefully being retained, and the amount of players dropping is drastically lower than the first initial months. As I demonstrated above, this is the case.
Games that grow a player base are a rare exception, they are almost always associated with live service or subscriptions, and even then the time frame they can maintain this is limited.
Temporary growth is not lasting growth. Live service and subscription games are the case in point here. Most people subscribe for the month of a new patch, if they decide to resubscribe at all. FFXIV is currently going through this right now.
You talk about DLC tourists. Are they not players? Do they not exist in other games? You are discounting a whole portion of the player base.
You are talking about player retention and player growth. The majority of DLC tourists leave after a few months, usually permanently. This is what the data shows. They are players, but they are not retained. If they would stay, they would be counted.
I've only played Minecraft once for about ten minutes, but a few observations:
This is obvious when you follow up with this:
This makes it impossible for them to say a former version was better
The Minecraft launcher allows you to play ANY version of Minecraft that has been released over the past 16 years. I do not have a number, but a sizeable amount of the Minecraft player base plays on a version that is not the current version, or even a version from the last 3 years of development. The reason there are more people playing is 1) because gaming as a whole has increased over the last 15 years, 2) an entire generation of new players has been born to play the game.
Not a single video game, ever, has achieved the levels of sustainable player retention that sports have.
Sports and video games don't work the same.
The only difference between sports and video games is that sports require more physical activity, aka the health benefits. That's it. Oh, and perhaps it's more socially acceptable to spend the majority of your time playing sports than video games 😁. Games are games. In fact, you talk about player retention: how many people do you know that have kept playing soccer or football or basketball outside of their high school or college years? I'll take a guess: not many. You'll have a FEW people play in rec leagues, but the majority of players stop playing outside of extracurricular activities. That fact undermines your entire counterargument. Video games retain MORE players over a LONGER period of time because the physical barrier to entry is much lower, and the medium is more accessible.
As I said earlier, you're drawing a thread that basically entails 'changes I'm okay with or are supported don't count'.
No, you just completely ignored my comments about how even bhvr specifies what is a "balance change" and an actual "content change." The thread is about content changes. Balance changes are not those.
And I'm discussing them because they are completely normal human behaviors. As I've said, I'm not aware of a single video game that has managed to overcome this, the ones that hold it off the longest are the ones with change.
If you are doing the same thing over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, you will get burnt out. Everything should be done in moderation. It shouldn't be up to the game to regulate a player's self-control over if they are playing too much or too little, and the game absolutely should not change for simply the sake of change to appease those very players who cannot control themselves.
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This is extremely pedantic and completely disingenuous to the thread at large. Growth would signify a continuous increase in player numbers to a significant degree (more than 5%).You don't just to get to state things and presume the other side was arguing them all along. I never said growth was 5% or that was my claim. Your presuming I'm arguing from those same standards.
My standard on growth, which I've repeated a few times: any growth is remarkable for a game of DbD's age.
If you think those numbers aren't relevant, that's fine, I disagree, but we're back to the retention of the player count.
Please explain to me how out of the past 58 months since June/July 2020, only 17 months had player numbers higher than the average player count for July 2020 (40,500 players)?This is simple
1: COVID
2: The summer months are generally DbD's best months
3: Any months later in a game's history having a higher player total is remarkable,
To turn the question around: Please explain why June 2021, 2022, and 2024, beat June 2020?
If changing it up is bad, why haven't player numbers dropped? Why aren't those months lower?
The Minecraft launcher allows you to play ANY version of Minecraft that has been released over the past 16 years. I do not have a number, but a sizeable amount of the Minecraft player base plays on a version that is not the current versionAs I said, I've never really played minecraft so without some sort of numbers kind of impossible to discuss.
The only difference between sports and video games is that sports require more physical activity, aka the health benefits.This is missing the forest for the trees.
What video game has matched sports levels of player retention?
Looking at the numbers its clear that they aren't the same and can't be compared. The 'why' is a fun academic question which I get into later, but a distraction from the issue.
In fact, you talk about player retention: how many people do you know that have kept playing soccer or football or basketball outside of their high school or college years?I asked for clarity in the last post whether we're discussing playing or spectators, so I guess we're on playing.
This actually backs up my point a lot. Most people move on from sports, which as I've been saying is the norm for human activities. Except as one generation ages out, another generation ages in. This does not apply to video games because the amount of competition increases substantially (i.e. what kids play the same games their parents played when the parents where kids, that's pretty rare and usually is things like Call of Duty or Madden that are constantly releasing new versions)
You asked for why sports are different? Well a possible reason is that its just really, really hard to start a new sport (think of how incredibly rare something like pickleball taking off is), while new video games come out constantly.
No, you just completely ignored my comments about how even bhvr specifies what is a "balance change" and an actual "content change." The thread is about content changes. Balance changes are not those.I'm asking for clarity:
If we were having this discussion before the survey how would you be talking about it?
If balance changes create a new meta is that a balance change or changing it up?
Where do features like the abandon system fall?
Where do things like new mods like 2v8 fall?
New killers are content changes, are they part of the issue?
It shouldn't be up to the game to regulate a player's self-control over if they are playing too much or too little, and the game absolutely should not change for simply the sake of change to appease those very players who cannot control themselves.Video game companies don't get to ignore human nature. If you're arguing that video game companies should just let these players go, that's a different discussion.
Much like with DLC tourists, they are players. What does a company have to do to retain its player numbers?
The only difference between sports and video games is that sports require more physical activity, aka the health benefits. That's it.I put this at the bottom because I don't think its related to the discussion, but you are really missing how substantially different these activities are. There's probably more than this, but here's five in addition to what I've discussed:
1: The physical activity is a bigger part than you make it out to be. The adrenaline, the endorphins, the bruises, they are real things that happen. Video games are a simulation of an experience. Inevitably the 'simulated' experience will die off if the creator doesn't keep it fresh.
2: Ease of access and versatility. As a child I played 2 on 2 basketball with my friends and 5 on 5 organized games with my school. When we had an odd number of basketball players we made up our own games (the most common being 21, but that has different names) I've played football with anywhere from 3 to 30 players. Kids around the world make soccer pitches out of small lots with however many kids they have on hand.
With just a little bit of equipment and space people constantly modify sports to fit what they have.
If you play a video game, you are playing the game that has been designed. Even with games with mods, you are limited to whatever the community has created for you. If the only way that people could play soccer was 11 by 11 on a full size pitch it would not have nearly the level of player retention.
3: Sports have an off season and less frequency of play.
4: Level of competition for the activity, there are generally three to five major sports in a country, with potentially a dozen minor options that a person might have reasonable access to. The level of video games that are available vastly exceeds that.
5: Timespan. The first major league baseball game occurred in either 1871 or 1876 depending on what standard you want to use, though the original version of the game was vastly different than what exists today. If ever a video game has a development cycle of the length of sports, then it might be a different discussion.
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You don't just to get to state things and presume the other side was arguing them all along. I never said growth was 5% or that was my claim. Your presuming I'm arguing from those same standards.
You asked for what I defined as significant. I defined it. If you want to disagree with what significant means to you, that's fine, but this is the metric I'm working off of. The executives at any company wouldn't see "growth" as "just a single player increase or player retention," they would want an actual, tangible percentage, which is why I arrived at a fairly lenient percentage of 5%.
My standard on growth, which I've repeated a few times: any growth is remarkable for a game of DbD's age.
I showed with the month by month player averages that DbD is not growing. Temporary player increase is not player growth. Month over month player retention is what matters.
To turn the question around: Please explain why June 2021, 2022, and 2024, beat June 2020?
If you would have read my entire post, you'd have seen that I explained it to you:
Since the pandemic began, there have been 3 separate instances where the average player count for a period of time was significantly higher (>5%) than June/July of 2020: the first Resident Evil DLC, where after 6 months, the majority of those players (or a combination of existing and DLC tourists) left; the infamous Patch 6.1.0 in June/July of 2022 (PTB and Live), that only lasted that month; and the D&D DLC, most likely due to Stranger Things' D&D influence, and Vecna being a long desired addition to the roster.
This is missing the forest for the trees.
It literally isn't. The only thing different from conventional sports (which are games) and video games are the physical aspect.
Except as one generation ages out, another generation ages in. This does not apply to video games because the amount of competition increases substantially (i.e. what kids play the same games their parents played when the parents where kids, that's pretty rare and usually is things like Call of Duty or Madden that are constantly releasing new versions)
The second wave of Minecraft players would like to have a word with you. Sorry I know you haven't played Minecraft, so feel free to avoid that fact.
You asked for why sports are different? Well a possible reason is that its just really, really hard to start a new sport (think of how incredibly rare something like pickleball taking off is), while new video games come out constantly.
As a child I played 2 on 2 basketball with my friends and 5 on 5 organized games with my school. When we had an odd number of basketball players we made up our own games (the most common being 21, but that has different names) I've played football with anywhere from 3 to 30 players. Kids around the world make soccer pitches out of small lots with however many kids they have on hand.
So which is it? You can't start a new sport, or you can start a sport based on what you have on hand? I think you're conflating major league sports with just general sports. You can make up literally any sport physically imaginable. Getting that to be a major league sport? Sure that's another thing entirely.
If we were having this discussion before the survey how would you be talking about it?
It would have been the exact same because I felt the same way about updates as bhvr did prior to the survey.
Video game companies don't get to ignore human nature. If you're arguing that video game companies should just let these players go, that's a different discussion.
They cannot control human nature. If you polish a turd, it's still a turd. People get bored of turds. That was my whole argument about the core gameplay loop. If it's a good core, people will stay.
The physical activity is a bigger part than you make it out to be. The adrenaline, the endorphins, the bruises, they are real things that happen. Video games are a simulation of an experience. Inevitably the 'simulated' experience will die off if the creator doesn't keep it fresh.
So the adrenaline and endorphins you get from playing video games is just fake? Do you know how the endocrine system in the body works? When your palms are sweaty from nervousness or anxiety in a game, that's just "fake" or "simulated?" Sorry, you statement is just flat out wrong.
At the end of the day, games are games. Sports are games.
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I am a newer player, but I'm loving it. I wish I got into it sooner but it's been so much fun. I know it's different for me than you old timers, but I look forward to the future
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This will be my last post on the topic as its getting a circular and I'll try to sum up my arguments. You're welcome to have the last word.
1: Growth and inevitable decline.
You say -
You asked for what I defined as significant.Not that I can find, though in fairness its a long discussion so maybe I'm missing it or you interpreted something I said different than I intended. I said significant was subjective and then I explained my point on the growth issue. Getting into what executives and a company might be looking for growth numbers was never an issue.
The point of the growth issue has always been connected to the player count retention issue - games have a pool of players that they appeal to. Over time players will naturally move away from the game. Depending on the game type the timeframe this occurs over may change. Looking at the history of games, a game not on the decline nearly ten years into its life cycle is amazing.
Comparing it to things like Minecraft is like saying a business isn't successful because it doesn't bring in as much money as Amazon.
2: Change it up - Going back to your original statement that I responded to:
I don't know where people get this idea that games need to "change it up" in order to retain their players.When someone says a games needs to change, I presume they mean change until I see a qualifier. I don't think they inherently know that they are supposed to be using a standard from a survey that BHVR conducted and that clearly some forms of change aren't part of the topic.
You seem to agree that lots of forms of change are necessary, though when I've asked for clarity you've avoided the specifics. This makes the discussion difficult and you're arguing with a strawman.
3: Player counts - You have to compare like to like. You have to compare June with June, April with April, etc. You also have to consider other factors that could impact the player counts, in this discussion mainly the availability of players during the pandemic.
Looking at the numbers any other way than this I think is flatly wrong. On a month by month comparison 2024 is on par with 2020 and overall slightly beats it.
You also seemed to have a misunderstanding of what the numbers meant that come from things like Steamcharts for the monthly player count and that players having more . You didn't address this which means:
There's been a miscommunication - not addressing it makes the discussion impossible.
I'm the one whose wrong - not providing me the info on why I'm wrong makes the discussion impossible
You're the one whose wrong - in which case a fundamental premise of your discussion on players is no longer true and needs to be acknowledged, not avoided.
4: Core gameplay loop - No one ever disagreed that a core gameplay loop was important. We're not talking about fixing bad games, we're talking about what is needed from a successful video game to retain it player counts.
5: Games are games - Just because two things have similarities does not mean they are the same. This seems to be a massively overdrawn connection on your part that ignores reality. As an example: a scary movie, a scary game, and a scary haunted house all evoke similar feelings, but also have massive differences in terms of things like their repeatability.
An obvious point being: if they were the same, why have all three?
The experience of running to an exit gate while chased by killer while actually sitting in a chair holding the W key is radically different than the experience of actually running down the field with an actual human trying to catch you. Are there similar reactions? Broadly speaking, sure. Can a good simulation mimic this for a limited amount of time? Absolutely. Are they the same? Not at all.
With how things have gone with things like the sports issue, I feel like no matter how many times I list clear factual differences between two things, you're just going to say 'games are games' and ignore them.
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This will be my last post on the topic as its getting a circular and I'll try to sum up my arguments. You're welcome to have the last word.
Thanks for giving me permission to have the last word! 😁 It's only circular because you are refusing to accept the data I'm presenting you, so I have to reexplain things multiple times.
I said significant was subjective and then I explained my point on the growth issue.
You said it was subjective, so I defined what it meant to me.
Getting into what executives and a company might be looking for growth numbers was never an issue.
I never said it was? I used it to justify why my growth percentage was what it was.
Looking at the history of games, a game not on the decline nearly ten years into its life cycle is amazing.
Most games aren't designed to be replayed continuously and forever. I'm talking about the games that are designed with replayability in mind. I figured that was a no-brainer, but of course a game like Nier Automata or will lose its appeal after you 100% beat the game and run through all of the content. DbD/Minecraft/Skyrim are not like that; they have different, more evergreen, loops.
Comparing it to things like Minecraft is like saying a business isn't successful because it doesn't bring in as much money as Amazon.
False equivalence. I never said that if you weren't as successful as Minecraft you weren't a successful game. I showed with data that dbd is on the decline over the past 5 years. You claim it isn't because "dbd gaines 1 player every couple of months for only 1 month!!"
When someone says a games needs to change, I presume they mean change until I see a qualifier. I don't think they inherently know that they are supposed to be using a standard from a survey that BHVR conducted and that clearly some forms of change aren't part of the topic.
What does this even mean? Of course when people say a game needs to change, they want a specific set of changes to make the game feel different. Those are usually tied to core gameplay issues. Gripes around balance are purely a pvp issue.
Player counts - You have to compare like to like. You have to compare June with June, April with April, etc. You also have to consider other factors that could impact the player counts, in this discussion mainly the availability of players during the pandemic.
You don't have to compare June with June. I don't know what data and statistics class you took in school, but a continuous data comparison over a period of time is just as valid as what you are suggesting, as long as you are aware of the trends. I thoroughly explained the data to you, yet you are still ignoring it. I can't help you there.
There's been a miscommunication - not addressing it makes the discussion impossible.
Just because I don't address a point you raised does not make the discussion impossible. You are attempting to hide behind definitions when everyone else knows what I'm talking about. The tactic of saying "oh well we don't know" or "oh it's not certain" or "this data might not be accurate" is a telltale sign that someone does not want to interact with the data available (within reason, sometimes there are valid instances to question the data). This is the only data we have. I know how steam charts work. I know what averages are. You know how steam charts work. You know what averages are. The discussion is impossible because you will not agree on the most basic data we have available.
Core gameplay loop - No one ever disagreed that a core gameplay loop was important. We're not talking about fixing bad games, we're talking about what is needed from a successful video game to retain it player counts.
This just went right over my original point then. If your core loop is good, it will retain its players more reliably over time.
Games are games - Just because two things have similarities does not mean they are the same. This seems to be a massively overdrawn connection on your part that ignores reality. As an example: a scary movie, a scary game, and a scary haunted house all evoke similar feelings, but also have massive differences in terms of things like their repeatability.
From wikipedia: Sport - a form of physical activity or game.
You're not going to win this point, I'm sorry. How humanity as a whole defines sport is against your personal definition. I'm not arguing that you are having a similar level of physical activity and associated hormones when playing video games, in fact, I said that was their only difference. You can still get adrenaline playing games. You can still have an anxiety response when under the pressure to perform in a ranked environment. Side comment, do you know what mirror neurons are? They are neurons that fire when we witness activities that mimic the neurons that would fire if we were actually performing that activity. Look them up, it's an interesting topic.
With how things have gone with things like the sports issue, I feel like no matter how many times I list clear factual differences between two things, you're just going to say 'games are games' and ignore them.
I hoped someone with as much experience as you would know the difference between facts and opinions. The only facts we have discussed in this thread are the player numbers from steam charts. Everything else has been opinion. It just so happens that we're just going to have to agree to disagree with the both of ours.
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