Player retention comparted to CK3 first 2 weeks after release

[myrogia]

I think that approach isn't something special for Vic2 - it's a thing for any Paradox GSG release: The v1.0 release of a new installment of each of the IPs is always "less" content-rich/balanced/polished then the v17.2.4 of its predecessor.

The problem isn't lack lack of polish (bad UI and performance) or lack of "content" ( I assume this means flavor). Those are secondary and tertiary concerns, respectively.

The problems that I and presumably many other people have, are with the fundamental mechanics and gameplay vision that the devs seem to have, and that so many among the community seem dedicated to gaslighting us on. Given the direction of the upcoming changes that the devs have revealed. The main focus, the core gameplay loop, of the game now and in the future seems to be about setting up law sieges and then dedicating 80% of screentime and game time to mindlessly clicking on buildings according to a build order that was either decided using min-maxed efficiency or whatever RP you decided on when you started the campaign. We don't like that. We don't think it's appropriate for a Victoria game, and we want that changed.

And yet, people insist on writing fanfiction about how "deep" and "complex" the political and economic systems are, in the same way they wrote fanfiction about how much "strategy" and "logistics" the new war system would have. I almost feel nauseous now when I read that stupid quote about real generals focusing on logistics over tactics. How do you like them apples, now? How is this amazingly strategic and logistics-focused war system? Is it oh so realistic, mister master chief strategy-brained general? Are you having fun, now?

Just as the war fanfiction cope has been dispelled. The politics and economics fanfiction cope must also be dispelled.

No, rolling dice to siege law forts are not fun. That's not realistic. It's boring, it's non-interactive, it's frustrating RNG. The IGs are also not fun, not realistic, frustratingly RNG, and undermines the very POPs system that this game is supposed to have as its central pillar. The only saving grace of everything to do with politics in Vic3 is that it's basically a one and done. Once you have what you want, the entire system can essentially be ignored. However, you can't exactly reconcile that reality with the fanfiction about "such a deep and intricate political system". What a waste of time and energy.

The economics system is also not fun. It is also not realistic. Mindlessly queueing up 500 coal and iron mines every few months is not fun. Reaching that point in the game 30 years in where you have 3k construction and need to max out every resource slot and specialize your agriculture in every state is also not fun. Having to go through the tedium of carefully changing only some of the production methods on your dozens of industries in dozens of states so you don't go into massive resource shortages, which you then have to redo as you construct more pylons is also not fun. The best part of the construction system is when you've built up enough that you can ignore it entirely and let the AI do everything. Depending on my patience, that can be anywhere after 3k-10k construction.

When the main gameplay loop of a game is utter cancer, and you've deleted all the other gameplay loops that were present in previous iterations of a game, you have a serious problem. Not just in the moment, but for the future of the game.

That's the problem we have with Victoria 3. Not the heckin' flavor. Not the garbage UI and map modes (why did they remove so many map modes?). Not the lack of meme arrows for our imaginary generals to march towards. No, not the little toy soldiers with 20 different skins to buy. I could not care less about toy soldiers. I have never looked at them in EU4, HOI4, Victoria 2, or stellaris. You could replace each and every toy soldier with a picture of Barrack Obamna in a bikini and there's a very good chance I would never notice. I care about the fundamental mechanics, because those aren't trivially changed by either the devs or mods. Those stick around, and decide not only how the game plays out now, but also how the devs might intend it to play out in the future.

The data is in. If this game continues on its current trajectory, it's dead. We know that Paradox won't make content for a dead game. If you hate the current state of Victoria 3, it is in your best interest to advocate for a massive change in the vision for the game. If you love the current state of Victoria 3.... it is also in your best interest to advocate for a massive change in the vision for the game, because having a different Victoria 3 with lots of updates and content, is better than a dead Victoria 3 with nothing. At least that way, there's a chance that they'll preserve something about this game that you currently enjoy. Win-win.

 

[Star Seeker]

Would LOVE to know what you found so disagreeable this time, @Star Seeker

View attachment 955722

Two things, the first is that the user who commented it makes me think the post is mocking in tone and not actually interested in discussing anything, which is a attitude I definitely don't agree with.

The second is the mere idea that you should compared Vic3 with anything other than unmodded Vic2, which I honestly think says more about Vic2 than 3.

And it's not like I'm the only one who disagreed with it, you know.

 

[Zarlagash]

The second is the mere idea that you should compared Vic3 with anything other than unmodded Vic2, which I honestly think says more about Vic2 than 3.

Do you not think it valuable to compare the games as they are and are played to each other? Victoria 2 1.0 was pretty bad but it's been 13 years since then and noone is playing 1.0 today, I think comparing what people actually play to each other is far more valuable to understand expectations and where people are coming from then to pretend we are still in august of 2010 and our only choices are the 1.0 release of victoria 2 and somehow the 1.1 release if victoria 3
edit: 2010 not 20010

 

[Znikii]

...If you love the current state of Victoria 3.... it is also in your best interest to advocate for a massive change in the vision for the game, because having a different Victoria 3 with lots of updates and content, is better than a dead Victoria 3 with nothing. At least that way, there's a chance that they'll preserve something about this game that you currently enjoy. Win-win.

That's fallacious at worst and unfair at best. Maybe some would prefer it death than having something so drastically changed where you can barely recognize and enjoy it for what it used to be. Because the new form would be so different, that you could consider the previous/original iteration you really enjoyed as good as dead.
It's like you enjoy eating Hamburgers, buts it has unhealthy ingredients. So you change it so much, that in the end you get a bowl of salad. Sure you still have some original ingredients in it, but you can hardly call it a Hamburger. Sure, fair enough, those that like bowl of salat will love the new Hamburger and good for them. But those that want a burger can either suck it up or cancel the order. Why would one group of people or the other be in anyway more in the right than the other?

 

[Lord Lambert]

Two things, the first is that the user who commented it makes me think the post is mocking in tone and not actually interested in discussing anything, which is a attitude I definitely don't agree with.

There was literally nothing mocking in the comment I highlighted. It was, as any rational human being reading it would immediately understand, a reasonable question.

The second is the mere idea that you should compared Vic3 with anything other than unmodded Vic2, which I honestly think says more about Vic2 than 3.

The mere idea is perfectly sound. When going in to develop Vic3, the developers SHOULD have looked at Victoria 2, and SHOULD have looked at the most popular mods for Victoria 2 to see what the community who play Victoria 2 like. What is it about the game that they find interesting and what area of the game do they feel needs enhancing with mods.
The absolute most ludicrous comparison is to DLCless Vic2, as basically every single time someone recommends another to buy and play Vic2, the recommendation comes with "you have to get the DLCs though"

 

[Plastic_Duke]

Why is release version Vic2 the benchmark to judge Vic3 by and not the fully updated, patched, and hell, even modded version?

Probably because developping games takes a lot of time, work and, coincidentally, money. So, unless you're a huge company that can live on its cash reserve basically forever (Blizzard?), or just a team of passionate volunteers working on a pet project (modders), then there always comes a point at which you have to release your work for sale to get back on your investment. There's just no way around that.

So of course, there is very little chance that a 4 years old project like V3, with only 3 years of indoor dev time, can stand to a 12+ years old game like V2, that received so much more dev and modding time during its lifespan, at least in terms of polish, balance, and flavour. It will take more time than that to flesh out the game, iron out all the bugs and wrinkles, etc... That's called being realistic.

Now, still, has Victoria 3 released a little bit too soon for its own good? Steam figures and notations seem to indicate that yes. Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend with PDX at large, but anyway... I also think they would benefit from trying extended open beta periods before they launch a new title. There is so much pressure on them because of their economic model, driving up people's expectations, they can't afford to screw it up every time like that... More quality control is definitely needed, I won't deny that.

At least, if 1.2 had been 1.0, I believe that the game would not have been so harshly received, because 1.2 is, in my opinion, good. Not perfect by far, to be honest, but it's a perfectly fun and enjoyable game in its 1.2 beta state. And most of its remaining problems, the obvious ones, are already included in the devs roadmap for post launch support, so I think I can trust them to make the game very good even before they start putting out DLCs en masse.

Thing is, in 12 years, or even half that time, if interest for V3 survives that long, very few of us will remember and think about the game the way we looked at it at launch. Hopefully it will have received so much successful support and a few incredible mods that we won't be able to detach our minds from what a great game it has become. This is me crossing my fingers now. But even if it doesn't turn out this way, I'll still be happy with a few solid DLCs and basic support, like Imperator had. So it won't feel like such a waste to me, even in the worst case scenario. I just like the game already. Sorry.

 

[Star Seeker]

There was literally nothing mocking in the comment I highlighted.

Nothing in the comment itself, which I even specified by saying the user themselves is what makes me think that.

When going in to develop Vic3, the developers SHOULD have looked at Victoria 2, and SHOULD have looked at the most popular mods for Victoria 2 to see what the community who play Victoria 2 like. What is it about the game that they find interesting and what area of the game do they feel needs enhancing with mods

There is no "should". To start, just because a mod is among the most popular doesn't mean people wanted the game or its sequels to be more like it.

TNO is one of Hoi4's most popular mods, but I be shocked if the majority of people who played it or vannila wanted Hoi5 to me more like its style. Same applies to other mods.

that will "respectfully" disagree with anything that does not blindly praise Vic3

It's not like you aren't on the other extreme, though. I've seen you mocking or being rudely sarcastic to people who imply or say that anything other than the concept of Vic3's warfare system is its actual problem.

In any case, you're clearly not just "not blindy praising" Vic3, you're much further away from that line. Using an ad hominem like this seems disingenuous when there are legitimate reasons to disagree with what you're saying or your atitude these past few months.

 

[Lord Lambert]

Probably because developping games takes a lot of time, work and, coincidentally, money. So, unless you're a huge company that can live on its cash reserve basically forever (Blizzard?), or just a team of passionate volunteers working on a pet project (modders), then there always comes a point at which you have to release your work for sale to get back on your investment. There's just no way around that.

That has little to nothing to do with my question.

So of course, there is very little chance that a 4 years old project like V3, with only 3 years of indoor dev time, can stand to a 12+ years old game like V2, that received so much more dev and modding time during its lifespan, at least in terms of polish, balance, and flavour.

That is an incredibly defeatist attitude, and one I flatly reject. The fact that Vic3 doesn't even stand up to Vic2 with only 2 DLCs in terms of flavour is incredibly damning and I do not believe there is any justification for it.

At least, if 1.2 had been 1.0, I believe that the game would not have been so harshly received, because 1.2 is, in my opinion, good

I disagree. Both with the assertion that the game is good now, and with the belief that the game would be well recieved, or "less harshly" received. Because the same fundamental problems that caused the game to be received poorly still remain.

I just like the game already. Sorry.

I don't begrudge you that, no need to be sorry. I wish I could share your enjoyment. I don't WANT to dislike the game, I dont WANT the game to be bad. I truly wish it was both good and that I liked it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Star Seeker]

Basically admitting then that you dislike comments based purely on the person posting them, rather than the comments itself

I don't. In fact it seems ridiculous of you to say that considering I agree with your comment regarding the focus of EU4.

Also, I did not say that, I was combining the comment with the user posting it, and immediately figuring out what they were actually saying.

The SHOULD is that the devs SHOULD have at least looked at these mods to see what the community still playing Vic2 enjoys. So yes, quite in contrary to what you have said (how common I can say this smh) there is a should. The Devs SHOULD have done their due diligence and market research

And they probably did, but might have decided that the likes of HPM was not the way to go because, as I say, a mod being the most popular doesn't mean that either people want a sequel to be more like it, or that that is even a good idea.

Except I don't blindly dislike comments based purely on the person posting it? So, absolutely not.

I wasn't talking about using the reaction function, though.

No, you truly have not.

Yes, I have?

 

[Znikii]

...
You were when I screenshotted my reactions page. But I am not surprised, there are plenty of people on this forum like you that will "respectfully" disagree with anything that does not blindly praise Vic3. Any hint of a dissenting word, the mere suggestion that not everything is perfect, will get a disagree from them.

Ooooh look, we have a Sith, who deals in absolutes. Have you maybe considered that just because people disagree with you doesn't equate to the need for blind praise? I mean, how can I from now on take any of your arguments, valid or not, seriously if you mentally operate with logically incoherent arguments?

Or maybe, just maybe those people that categorically disagree with any criticism are actually having a same reasoning and deep love for the game as you. They just approach it from a different angle. Where you think that you would do most good for the improvement and longevity of vic3 by loudly pointing out and spotlighting the problems you have with the game so they can be focused on and fixed, hopefully soon. On the other hand, this other group might think that bad press and excessive doom-saying might hurt then the prospects of a successful future for vic3 more than whatever problems the game currently has. Thus they think they can do the most good for the game if they put their effort into silencing critics. /shrug

What I would like to see is if you take all those things you have to say about the problems that are plaguing the game and start a new dedicated thread with them. And leave this thread to people who post graphs and statistics and debate around them, and not whatever the game sucks cuz you cant order the army to encircle the other army....

ps.: haha and let's be honest. everyone. and I mean really everyone including you and me is using Respectfully Disagree react for everything from honestly Respectfully disagreeing and all the way to You are an idiot and I hate you and go [insert profanity of your choice] and everything in between those 2 extremes

 

[Nephandus]

@Star Seeker @Lord Lambert

I suggest that you take this kind of discussion private or not at all... at least not in a public thread for all to see. Not only do you both appear like two little children bickering in a sandbox but it is also off-topic which is clearly a violation of forum rules.

 

[qer]

The problem isn't lack lack of polish (bad UI and performance) or lack of "content" ( I assume this means flavor). Those are secondary and tertiary concerns, respectively.

The problems that I and presumably many other people have, are with the fundamental mechanics and gameplay vision that the devs seem to have, and that so many among the community seem dedicated to gaslighting us on. Given the direction of the upcoming changes that the devs have revealed. The main focus, the core gameplay loop, of the game now and in the future seems to be about setting up law sieges and then dedicating 80% of screentime and game time to mindlessly clicking on buildings according to a build order that was either decided using min-maxed efficiency or whatever RP you decided on when you started the campaign. We don't like that. We don't think it's appropriate for a Victoria game, and we want that changed.

And yet, people insist on writing fanfiction about how "deep" and "complex" the political and economic systems are, in the same way they wrote fanfiction about how much "strategy" and "logistics" the new war system would have. I almost feel nauseous now when I read that stupid quote about real generals focusing on logistics over tactics. How do you like them apples, now? How is this amazingly strategic and logistics-focused war system? Is it oh so realistic, mister master chief strategy-brained general? Are you having fun, now?

Just as the war fanfiction cope has been dispelled. The politics and economics fanfiction cope must also be dispelled.

No, rolling dice to siege law forts are not fun. That's not realistic. It's boring, it's non-interactive, it's frustrating RNG. The IGs are also not fun, not realistic, frustratingly RNG, and undermines the very POPs system that this game is supposed to have as its central pillar. The only saving grace of everything to do with politics in Vic3 is that it's basically a one and done. Once you have what you want, the entire system can essentially be ignored. However, you can't exactly reconcile that reality with the fanfiction about "such a deep and intricate political system". What a waste of time and energy.

The economics system is also not fun. It is also not realistic. Mindlessly queueing up 500 coal and iron mines every few months is not fun. Reaching that point in the game 30 years in where you have 3k construction and need to max out every resource slot and specialize your agriculture in every state is also not fun. Having to go through the tedium of carefully changing only some of the production methods on your dozens of industries in dozens of states so you don't go into massive resource shortages, which you then have to redo as you construct more pylons is also not fun. The best part of the construction system is when you've built up enough that you can ignore it entirely and let the AI do everything. Depending on my patience, that can be anywhere after 3k-10k construction.

When the main gameplay loop of a game is utter cancer, and you've deleted all the other gameplay loops that were present in previous iterations of a game, you have a serious problem. Not just in the moment, but for the future of the game.

That's the problem we have with Victoria 3. Not the heckin' flavor. Not the garbage UI and map modes (why did they remove so many map modes?). Not the lack of meme arrows for our imaginary generals to march towards. No, not the little toy soldiers with 20 different skins to buy. I could not care less about toy soldiers. I have never looked at them in EU4, HOI4, Victoria 2, or stellaris. You could replace each and every toy soldier with a picture of Barrack Obamna in a bikini and there's a very good chance I would never notice. I care about the fundamental mechanics, because those aren't trivially changed by either the devs or mods. Those stick around, and decide not only how the game plays out now, but also how the devs might intend it to play out in the future.

The data is in. If this game continues on its current trajectory, it's dead. We know that Paradox won't make content for a dead game. If you hate the current state of Victoria 3, it is in your best interest to advocate for a massive change in the vision for the game. If you love the current state of Victoria 3.... it is also in your best interest to advocate for a massive change in the vision for the game, because having a different Victoria 3 with lots of updates and content, is better than a dead Victoria 3 with nothing. At least that way, there's a chance that they'll preserve something about this game that you currently enjoy. Win-win.

This is indeed very accurate, and the reason as to why I think we are approaching an Imperator situation: if the core mechanics are forgetable, superficial changes ain't going to keep people invested.

 

[Lazy Sorcerer]

I also think people are mostly remembering and loving V2 for what it was/is after years and years of patching and careful modding by a few dedicated people - and I'm counting myself here. The smooth and rich, flavorful experience of HPM V2 is not indicative of what the game is in its vanilla version, even less so of what it was as a 1.0.

Admittedly, I didn't play V3 until the recent 1.2 beta, since I didn't have a lot of time to play at all before that, but I must say that I really had a blast. I like all about its core mechanics and I really feel like it's such an upgrade over V2 in terms of gameplay, and I'm saying this as a long time V2 fan.

In truth, I don't think the two games are even that different at the moment. You build things (way more complex and time consuming in V3, sure), you set up a research order (very similar between the two), you use focuses (called decrees in V3) and events to influence your POPs, and the influence minigame is gone - you have a capacity instead of diplo points, which I prefer. Oh and in V3 you actually have a governement and passing laws is a little more interesting than just spamming elections in wait for reform support - again, another slight upgrade.

Edit - I forgot colonization, already way better in V3 1.2 than in V2.

No, but the big difference is in a shift of gameplay focus. It's mostly a trade off between war and economic micromanagement. So obviously, the people who prefer the former will prefer V2 for the ability to move stacks of armies around the map. This isn't a fixable situation, I'm afraid. I don't like to tell people what they should do, but if you hate V3 warfare in its essence, then I would suggest you to move on with your life. I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon. So you're probably wasting time and energy hating on it.

Fortunately, I'm in the opposite camp - I enjoy the very detailed economic gameplay way more than warfare and the fact that it's harder to just cheese the AI during wars when it's mostly hands off, so you don't have an 'easy' way to win a war you should have no business winning if you were playing 'fair'. I've also played enough of EU4 for a whole lifetime so doing away with stacks warfare is very refreshing to me.

Long story short, at least in its 1.2 version, I feel like V3 is really solid, and I enjoy it a lot. That's not to say that the game is perfect though. It still lacks quite a bit of polish, balance, and flavour. But these will come in time, I have no doubt about it. The only question is, will it come fast enough to help the game really take off and sell enough DLCs to be supported for years like others PDX franchises? Well, I do hope so.

HPM is not that different from 3.04. It adds a lot of flavor, but mechanics are 90% the same (in some aspects, even worse, see the endless iron shortages that are caused by the HPM dev not understanding how RGOs are supposed to work). People overestimate how much mods change and improve. (As a side note, I have been told multiple times that VtM Bloodlines was literally unplayable without the Unofficial Patch, when I in fact played the unmodded 1.2 version only encountering a single major bug.)

And the real difference is between Vic 2 and Vic 3 players is I would say not pro-war vs. anti-war, but between those who want essentially a sandbox simulator to play around with (Vic 2) vs. those who want a more traditional game (Vic 3). Compare and contrast the many Vic 2 mechanics that go in a background without the player directly interacting with them vs. the city-builder economy of Vic 3.

 

[Inquerion]

Getting discussion back on topic (guys please stay on topic, this thread is too valuable to get closed due to very few offtopic discussions @Lord Lambert @Star Seeker), numbers jumped during this weekend to ~8k players on average; similar number was recorded during last weekend, which is actually...a good thing; they stopped decreasing compared to previous weekends, which means that at least few thousands V3 players are dedicated "core" fans of the game. Which may be enough to produce and sell future DLCs to them.

Some new data from VG Insights: this game sold 855k copies to this day. When I checked that site last time (9th of February) it was 831k.

So that means, that Steam sold ~24k V3 copies in a ~month. Sadly, its'a bad result for a new (5 months old) game.

Currently V3 is 240 on the list of bestsellers. To compare it with other PDX titles, Hoi4 is 113, EU4 102, Stellaris 73 (likely due to incoming DLC), which means that more people are buying copies of these games right now than V3 copies.

Now we have to wait to see how official 1.2 release will impact numbers tommorow, (and especially) during the next weekend.

Quick comparison of the current (12th of March 2023 3PM CET) state of these 4 mentioned PDX games, according to SteamDB:

 

[ironman3112]

That is an incredibly defeatist attitude, and one I flatly reject. The fact that Vic3 doesn't even stand up to Vic2 with only 2 DLCs in terms of flavour is incredibly damning and I do not believe there is any justification for it.

Exactly this. I don't understand how people state Vic2 modded can't be compared to Vic3 at release with the development time as some sort of defense.

The mods are made by dudes in their basement with no financial backing - having to work their own regular job and work on the mod in their spare time with no hope of a monetary reward for their efforts.

I don't think its reasonable to have lower expectations for a corporation that has significantly more resources and are literally paying people 40 hour weeks to develop content for the game. You think they'd have somebody adding in critical events for the time period like the Berlin Conference. Or perhaps my expectations of having pivotal events from the 20th century represented in a grand strategy game about the 20th century is unreasonable.

Now we have to wait to see how official 1.2 release will impact numbers tommorow, (and especially) during the next weekend.

The patch will definitely provide a big boost - I'm going to guess it'll get up to 11-12K players in the upcoming week. We won't really know how well the patch has done though until about a month from now though to see how many people stick with the game.

 

[King Jong Un]

More quality control is definitely needed, I won't deny that.

At least, if 1.2 had been 1.0, I believe that the game would not have been so harshly received, because 1.2 is, in my opinion, good.

Am giving Vic 3 developers the benefit of the doubt here. I suspect it was people who manage the company as a whole at Paradox wanting to get a cash grab in the run up to Christmas and ordering an early release, rather than the people working on the game not identifying problems during testing. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't see what goes on behind the scenes, but the Vic 3 team seems to have responded very well to improving the unfinished parts of the game since release, so it looks like they were well aware of the work to be done.

 

[Znikii]

Does anyone know, if there is any reliable data on average play time per month (in hours per month) since the release of each game (vic2, eu4, hoi4, ck3 and vic3)?

 

[Brynjar]

Does anyone know, if there is any reliable data on average play time per month (in hours per month) since the release of each game (vic2, eu4, hoi4, ck3 and vic3)?

Not that I'm aware, but the number of daily concurrent players will generally be influenced by average play time as well. Two people who plays for 3 hours each are more likely to have overlapping play times than two people playing 1 hour each.

Some new data from VG Insights: this game sold 855k copies to this day. When I checked that site last time (9th of February) it was 831k.

So that means, that Steam sold ~24k V3 copies in a ~month. Sadly, its'a bad result for a new (5 months old) game.

It should be noted that the sales numbers on these sites are largely based on review numbers. An increased estimate does not neccessarily reflect a similar increase in sales. For Vic 3 a big chunk of the increase could simply be due to people leaving a review due to being happy/unhappy about what they have seen from the 1.2 beta.

 

[Znikii]

Not that I'm aware, but the number of daily concurrent players will generally be influenced by average play time as well. Two people who plays for 3 hours each are more likely to have overlapping play times than two people playing 1 hour each.


It should be noted that the sales numbers on these sites are largely based on review numbers. An increased estimate does not neccessarily reflect a similar increase in sales. For Vic 3 a big chunk of the increase could simply be due to people leaving a review due to being happy/unhappy about what they have seen from the 1.2 beta.

overlapping time doesnt matter or am I misunderstanding something?
I would do the math something like: 1.) Sum up all the played time from each individual in any given month (or even better: week) to get= total hours played for every month/week since release. 2.) Then you divide those total hours played by the number of unique players from its respective week/month and you get the x hours played per player for each week/month, which you can nicely use to see trends, players habits, willingness to spend more or less time on a title and to pinpoint what drives sudden changes (e.g., new patch drops, new dlc is announced for another Paradox title, corona lockdown, WoW launches new expansion, implementation of option for subscription, steam sales,...).
Something similar with median approach might be necessary as well

 

[Brynjar]

overlapping time doesnt matter or am I misunderstanding something?
I would do the math something like: 1.) Sum up all the played time from each individual in any given month (or even better: week) to get= total hours played for every month/week since release. 2.) Then you divide those total hours played by the number of unique players from its respective week/month and you get the x hours played per player for each week/month, which you can nicely use to see trends, players habits, willingness to spend more or less time on a title and to pinpoint what drives sudden changes (e.g., new patch drops, new dlc is announced for another Paradox title, corona lockdown, WoW launches new expansion, implementation of option for subscription, steam sales,...).
Something similar with median approach might be necessary as well

The problem is that neither hours played nor number of unique players are publicly available. The only reliable number that is publicly available is number of concurrent players.