Steam average player count at lowest point in years
The last time the player count was lower was in February of 2020. Obviously this doesn't mean the game is dead but it likely indicates a trend in the wrong direction. One year ago the game had an average of 38k players in September. This year the game had an average of 30k players in September. A MASSIVE decrease. Why do you think the game is losing so many players and what could be done to get people playing more? In my experience survivor ragequitting is at an all time high. Killers don't seem happy with the game either if this forum is any indication.
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Baulder's Gate, Starfield, and Cyberpunk got releases/updates end of August, start of September.
Steamcharts still show a peak of 49K players during September, so there was interest when the Alien chapter released. Since the survivor perks are kinda of meh and Alien got nerfed shortly after release, wasn't bound to keep players over other big hits coming out.
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I think the core issue is likely the business end requiring constant new characters and more importantly perks. These perks have to be unique and now affect pretty much every facet of the game to the point that balancing around them became required. I think speed perks and gen regression perks really set the game down a negative path.
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Last year in September we got one of the most iconic antogonists in gaming who turned out to be one of the best designed killers this games ever had
This year we got one of the legends in horror, but their gameplay was definitely less than desirable
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after the alien chapter most people quit because they were disappointed, most were the players drawn in by the killer and even some old fans who were tired of the game
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Once Sonic Superstars and Mario Wonder come out in a couple weeks, DBD will be an afterthought for me. This September seemed stacked with other new games so I'm thinking people preferred to play those instead.
Maybe come December people will return. Sometimes a break from the game is good.
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Me after taking a break from DBD (I feel happy for the first time in years)
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Video games are too good, what can you do
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The game is stale, killer power fantasy is boring
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Killer power fantasy is dead. That was what you got in exchange for going against 4 people. Now you are a clown to taunt.
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I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players are staying away before the Halloween event. I know I'm currently playing a lot less than usual because I need to be ready to grind through the event tome on both Switch and PC (can we have cross progression soon, please?)
And there's not so much to play for now that the rift is finished with.
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Cyberpunk '77: Phantom Liberty just got released with Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba, I mean, what more do you need really?
Resident Evil also released Seperate Ways.
Peope are back to school/uni/work and might not play. DBD will be fine, it always is.
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It's certainly a hit, which may be down to a few factors. A big factor is the volume of new, enticing games that have dropped onto the Steam catalogue. Others could be a couple of announcements from DBD creators who want to move away, frustrations with BHVR, the community poisoning itself and other issues.
What may be interesting is this Halloween event. The clips of what appears to be a completely new map may mean a new game mode is being tested as part of the event, which may bring a fair few back, even if it's just out of curiosity.
The event may change the fall, but for now it's certainly a drop that, even if just for Steam charts, needs some attention.
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We had that same number last year too. Dont tell lies.
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I’m rockin’ MK1 n Lies of P on this pleasant, cozy, peaceful, chillaxation from DBD😌
These 2 recently released titles could be averting ppls attention
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So it's the same level as three years ago? Clearly something happen to grow that number over these three years for you to complain now. Maybe the game is stable around 30k players? Maybe the numbers don't reflect the real playerbase. It is on other platforms. I take it you are looking at all of those too?
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Killers don't seem happy with the game either if this forum is any indication.
Killers aren't happy. Survivors aren't happy. It's been that way for 7 years. Any resemblance of happiness disappears in a few days on the forums.
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There's no matchmaking in the game anymore and it's been that way for a long time, mmr everything was a higher cap, it wasn't good, but it was ok, especially for the solo q it's extremely important that experienced players don't meet casuals or noobis, bhvr Don't listen to the experienced players, they make a lot of questionable decisions: the community says: "this and that map is broken, the Blight addons are broken, etc...." bhvr then says: "we are changing Rancid Abattoir and nerfing an addon from Sadako , Demo and other few Killers, cause the satas say it! STATS ALL ABOUT STATS!" -true story :)) a high ping killer has been rewarded for this for years and hits unrealistic hits, bhvr fixes at least after years next to the pallet validation the window validation comes in, killer main cry because they can't hit anymore with their bad conation, and BOOM! bhvr does it again so that you get hits, so someone who has a good connection (example ME) is punished and has to hit perfectly and other killers (most) hit again 5m through the window
0 justice, 0 knowledge of the game, 0 matchmaking, and much more! this for years! At some point you think to yourself "OK, that's enough, I'm out! There are other great games where the devs at least have an idea of the game and if not then they listen to more experienced people in the community"
i hope dbd will die soon! or bhvr has to sell dbd! then i will be back with my 10k hrs
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For the most time, i play both sided, but it turned into a lottery. Either you are outclassed as killer, or you have an easy stomp.
Solo survivor hangs on both teammates and killer, with a good amount of them tunneling and camping, making the game insanly boring.
Thats why i for example play way less, and whenever i play, after a bad game (not a game where i lose, but a game that is unfun) i just stop playing again.
I want this game to be fun again, but it just isnt, and at one point i might just stop playing at all.
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It gets tiring to see camping, tunneling, and losing. They have balanced for high caliber survivors while expecting very little from killers. The game is not what it used to be.
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Both sides are not that fun for casuals, you need to be good at the game right now or it's pure agony
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It does indicate a trend in the wrong direction. If you want to use another metric then you could use twitch viewership which has declined from 25k average viewers in 2022 to 18k in 2023. It's clearly not just Steam where this decline in interest is happening. I don't think pointing this out rises to the level of complaining. I am concerned about the health of the game more than anything else. Some people will frequently point out that the game is old as a reason. Personally I find this to be a BS excuse since plenty of older games are still showing growth. Losing this much of your player base likely means something about the current direction of the game isn't connecting with a lot of players.
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The player count has always gone up and down. During the pandemic I imagine was probably the busiest period for alot of games, and people simply don't have that sort of time on their hands anymore. Having said that, I personally am finding it a struggle these days to retain interest. For the first time since I started playing 3 years ago, I'm having numerous consecutive games where team mates just give up to go next. I used to see it every now and then but it happened in 7 games out of 12 I played yesterday, 4 of them in a row. I think that is just one symptom of a larger problem. People getting to that level of frustration isn't a good thing. I can imagine they're not having good games in general if they're just walking up to the killer and asking them to down them.
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I'ts not even about not having skills.
I can compete with anyone in this game. 90% of the killers I face are sweaty try hards who hard tunnel, proxy camp and slug every game. When 9/10 matches are nothing but sweat fests just to feed some killers ego it becomes boring, tedious and not enjoyable.
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While I still play DBD, Lies Of P might be my game of the year, it is SUCH an incredible game and I have had a difficult time putting it down!
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I'm surprised alien didn't bring in alot more players
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Yep, casuals make up the majority for nearly every game, and when they cater to these 1% hardcore people who eat, sleep and breathe the game, the rest will move on.
Idk how true that is for this game, I stay far, far away from all that hardcore junk (the videos, weird streaming stuff, etc) . I play casually and don't care anymore.
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For sure, yep, same!
Love soulslike games, and Lies of P is phenom! Vibes like Bloodborne slightly, but the gameplay is a notch up imo, and the atmosphere is fantastic; Such beautiful surroundings n detail.
Really enjoy taking my time with these kind of games (almost slowplaying them😄).
American McGees Alice is one of my fav games ever, Alice Madness Returns, as well. EA officially completely screwed American McGee and all us fans over, last year, and we’ll never have a 3rd game.😔
However, with LoP as popular as it is rn, if Neowiz & Round8 opt to create a similarly themed Alice in Wonderland game in the dark vein of LoP and AM’s Alice (what he designed in concept art and intended for the 3rd game would’ve utilized Unreal5) omggg, can’t even put into words how insanely ultra elated I’ll be😍🤞🏽
Happy you’re as immersed in Lies of P as you are.
Always a sweet vibe when DBD mains are vocal here on the forums about what other games they’re into.
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bhvr takes too long to fix the present because they are too busy working on the future.. so we dont have often perk shake ups or interesting things more often, sure the xp and more bp events often would totally help but in the grand picture the game gets stale quick if there isnt a really big shake up in terms of meta.
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We should really be looking at the data Year-to-Date, as Month-to-Month is extremely misleading...
(This data is courtesy of Steam Charts)
Obviously these numbers are not representative of the entire playerbase, but we've no reason to believe this trend would be PC-exclusive. In fact, the increasing frustration from last-gen performance issues on console should suggest that console is seeing an even larger dip in player numbers.
All that important data aside, I haven't really played DBD in 8-9 months.
I'm extremely out of touch with the average player experience at this point, but if I had to guess...the player count is falling because the issues that drove players away from the game months ago continue to go unresolved.
The Alien chapter looks visually stunning, and I was so excited when it was first announced. But I can't be bothered to download and play the game when everything I see online indicates my experience will be the same (if not worse) than 8 months ago.
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DbD is just in a meh state at the moment. Most killer runs Corrupt, Pain Res and Pop, most survivors run MfT, Hope and DH. The last 4 killers have been underwhelming, either focusing on area protection or making pallets useless.
Alien DLC looks visually stunning, but Xeno is awful to go against and I personally find her boring to play as. Ripley came with no interesting survivor perks.
Sitting on gens for 90 seconds (plus the million times the gens get either Pop'd or Pain Res'd) is boring. Atm I'm playing Texas Chain Saw, it's way more action packed and the lock unlocking minigame is way more engaging and satisfying than holding M1.
I kinda missed DbD the other day and my first game was a Clown with Knock Out, Sloppy Butcher, Coulrophobia and Nurse's Calling on Dead Dawg, whose goal was to bleed people out on the ground for 4 minutes. The second was basement camping Trapper, third was Chess Merchant. Safe to say I went back to TCM and prolonged my break until the midchapter.
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Consider the game is in constant flux and when times are good when many are playing, we don't have people saying the game is going strong bhvr must be doing something right. It's only when we have drop off is when doom is on the horizon. Even at its peak the forums are full of complaints and those saying they quit forever.
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You saw a happy person even momentarily on a video game forum? Is that happy person in the room with you right now?
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the game isnt fun as a solo q survivor main. i quit to play other games, life has been quite good without dbd.
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Because even if you're playing Survivor, you won't have the same thrilling tension as before, and the killer gets bored with most of the nerf and misplaced adjustments with each update.
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They weakened Alien, which was not considered a problem, right after its release, while neglecting MFT, which was much talked about, for about 6 months. I think this kind of attitude is discouraging both Killer Survivor and Killer Survivor players from taking this game seriously.
I will play TCM for a while. Even though the balancing is still rough, I feel from the updates up to this point that they want to provide a comfortable gameplay experience for both camps.
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I don't like to look at him.
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game has been stale and boring for the past 7 years. There is no reason to sacrifice your fun and happiness for something that offers no real reward. The game is too intense for casual players and too easy for the experienced. Many new games have come out too. DBD is fun when I play 1-2 hours a couple days a week. Long sessions are just not doable anymore.
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I stopped playing last month after finishing the rift
Struggling to get motivation to start playing again, the newest amount of stagnation has hit harder. The increase of blatantly greedy practices with DLC pricing, the refusal to address stuff like MFT, Blight, Buckle up and so on has increased frustration.
Most DBD content is stale to watch as well, so the game isn't even entertaining for me to watch anymore. Especially when the content is 50% complaining.
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Doesn't matter what character they add if the gameplay loop sucks.
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What bhvr seem to not realise is no amount of killers / perks will keep the game fresh. The game needs new modes / objectives.
2v8 is my most wanted one.
Killer is miserable, so is solo / duos
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😄
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People should be banned for talking about steam charts
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