http://dbd.game/killswitch
Lowering Playercount =/= Dead Game
Periodically, I see posts on the forums stating that the game is dying because of a reduction in player count following the past few months. I know some people are concerned about the game's direction, but the player count of the game (and the Steam charts) are not an accurate representation of a game dying. Ive also seen people try to use queue times as a way to show such. Overall I find it very distasteful to say.
Player counts rise and lower all the time, and a player choosing to not play the game can have varying reasons, it shouldnt be used as a justification of the game being bad...
- Sometimes a player goes to play something else, the gaming market is full of tons of games that fill a specific niche that someone may be looking for, so while someone might enjoy DbD, they might enjoy other games more, and might opt to play them more often, this is apparent with new game releases as player count lowers for short bit, then retains the players from before just to not the same degree.
- Burnout exists, some people might just be tired of playing the same game over and over, while DbD has tons of possible combinations to mix things up, DbD has been out for years and players still may feel as if they are replaying the same match or that they've "done it all". This happens, and is normal in gaming.
- People also forget that new players pick up a game, some stay, some leave, but there is always going to be a stream of players who are new actively playing the game, old players might leave but there will be a cycle of new players coming in and older players leaving for awhile periodically returning. This is common with games that run off of "event cycles" or major content drops since there isnt a constant stream of content but a more periodic release.
- Steam charts only take into account players on Steam and not any other platform, and since there isnt an accurate way to track such, it is hard to determine the actual size of the playerbase. Steam charts cannot be a justification of a game dying since it ignores possible growth or regression on other platforms.
- Queue times are not a justification of the community dying either, longer queue times for survivor or killer can be based off of people playing a certain role at a given time and region. Some areas might have a more desirable role than others, some times might have a more desirable role than others. Further more, a lot of people swap between roles, or might shift to ones based on their playstyle or general entertainment. Queue times doesnt mean the game or a given role is dying, it shows that less people are just playing the role. As to rather it be because of external factors or such being undesirable entirely comes down to subjectivity, nothing is set in stone.
- A game player count lowering also doesnt entirely correlate to the game failing. For example, look at Minecraft. Minecraft reach peak popularity in 2012-2013, and while holding a smaller player count (40% of it's former self) than it did back then, it is one of the most sold games. Or let's take a more recent example, Elden Ring. Elden Ring lost 90% of it's player count since launch, yet the game has seen wide success and has a very large community despite the player count. We have a really limited perspective on how successful something is, the only people who can really quantify a game dying or failing are the developers since they hold information beyond our outlook.
Im just tired of seeing this hyperfixation on the game dying or the regressing Steam player count, I feel like such energy needs to be more focused on the actual game health, such as balancement and core design.
(Also I feel if DbD was failing, there would be no way BHVR would have had the resources to develop or work on another game while still providing services to DbD. BHVR's other ventures havent always done the best, I mean, look at what happened to Deathgarden, but if BHVR actually believes that this is a decision they can not only afford to make and work on, but support the game through it's lifetime, I think it's safe to say that DbD is still providing them good enough success to do so.)
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Playercount actually increased from how it was before the patch. So no, its not dying.
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Those posts are especially frustrating as they only sight the only figures available to the public: Steam.
It's just a really stupid way of judging a game's health by basing it on the figures of one platform, when there are several others (or thereabouts) included. And people have been claiming this crap since the get-go.
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Im just tired of seeing people say "dead game" and "the game is dying", while it is present in almost every gaming community, I feel like with DbD it's the more frustrating one to see from how one-dimensional the claims are. There really isnt much information for use to go off of, but people go out of their way to pick the worst quantifiable information, but ignore all qualifiable information out there. There are a lot of moving parts with this kind of stuff, and simplifying this into "number = dead game" isnt a reasonable argument, but people use it anyways.
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Even if player count was dropping, it will rise significantly when Resident Evil and Stranger Things drop their second chapters. Everything will be fine. BHVR just needs to balance in small increments moving forward, and not with a heavy hand.
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i wouldnt bank on console players adding much since ps plus came out and alot of people bought the subscription.. ( kind of goes with your first point)
i agree with the burnout point, i myself spend more time on forums then actually playing the game & i only hop on forums early morning/ late at night .-. but i still have fun checking out new content and look forward to project W since it is RE.
i think you are wrong on queue times not indicating anything... all i play is dead multiplayer games (RE Revelations, RE Resistance, MGSV, RE ORC) and gueue time shows how active a playerbase is.. if i can get a match quick then people are playing (1 min. max) but if it starts to go over 5 then it shows no one is playing.
i think you failed to factor in the licenses & how much that should effect a playerbase. Halloween, Scream, Stranger Things & the rest should draw thousands, even millions of players across platforms to play but why does it fail to do so?? the game is just not the same after 100+ hours, once you figure out the mechanics and what not then the game really starts to bleed from there. not saying it cant be fun at times but majority of time i feel like im just hoping to get a decent match.
i wouldnt worry about the game being dead anytime soon though... RE & Stranger Things can extend dbd's life for about another year or so then we'll really see what happens after that but as long as you can pull popular ip and licenses then you"re good.
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Game not is dead but this is spasmodic, i mean this have peak ammount of players in events or some cases and this can go low in regular time, this happend when game not is full fun and player end games tilted not only for problems with game (bugs, gameplay, netcode or another issues) u need add problem with toxic players Example (survivor is tunneled , camping or another then these player lose a peak , u can lose many of these playing with randoms, many players in 1 IRIDISCENT GRADE go to play in troll mode then ruin games to another playes trying level up the grade, or if u go killer found teams playing with discord, where they set map, basement and perks where killer will have a hard time and many times just DC solve problem why is waste time playing not for fun , i want to play for fun not for stress,
I read in steam ..... Behavior (devs) dont play his games and i think these is a fact
Sorry my english , this not is my native language.
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Well, player count never tells the whole story.
Before the patch, i played mostly solo survivor, and i had reached a very good mmr bracket, because i had constantly groups who knew how to do gens. DBD was my main game, i played it most of my playing time.
Since the patch, solo survivor had been hell to me. I think they changed something in mmr, because i got lots of players not doing anything usefull, in conjunction with killers camping and tunneling way more.
Since then, my gaming time in DBD is reduced by 80%, because i spend way more time playing other things. When i play dbd, i might do one or two survivor games, but mostly i play killer (since the patch, i did killer adept achivements, which are quite easy now. i got them all the last few days i played, only missing 2 , but working on it.
So, while i still in the player count, both my time and role contribution to this game has changes quite a bit. Pure numbers dont help you see that, but it might be as bad as players just stopping to show up.
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One thing everyone fails to realize is that after June/July there always looks like theres a reduction in players.
Some people come to see the new chapter and play for the anniversary event, and then leave.
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The fact player count itself isn't "lowering" lol
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My point regarding queue times was they arent an accurate representation of a game being dead. There are exceptions where games are dead the queue times do show it, but just because a game as long queue times, doesnt mean the game is dead. There are too many factors regarding queue times and a game dying not correlate so well, again, there are exceptions, but those exceptions shouldnt be used to say "DbD is dying".
Also I mentioned external, or qualifiable, factors affect a player count. External, or qualifiable, is in relations to qualities something has. If a DLC launches, people might return depending on what that DLC is, and some people might leave because of that DLC as well. Qualifiable information is something in more relation to the natural, qualities, and representation of something (aka, categorical variables).
And Im not worried about the game dying, I stated the opposite, that the game is doing insanely well. The entire post was focusing on addressing the "DbD is dying" and "dead game" posts I see every now and then on the forums.
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Well considering there were an average of 45-50k players online yesterday, I think we’re fine.
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