Nah, I think it’s pretty warranted here.
But maybe we go with crucifixion rather than something as quick as a bullet?
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Player retention comparted to CK3 first 2 weeks after release
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But maybe we go with crucifixion rather than something as quick as a bullet?
Unless you are absolutely heartbroken by buying a game with potential for a lot of paid DLC additions that doesn’t get them, then continued development isn’t really a concern.
It’s a full game. It’s not an Early Access game where, if dev stops, you’re left with an unfinished product. And unlike poor IR, it seems to have a fair amount of modability, which means there will likely be a dedicated population of fans who tweak and add stuff for years, regardless of official support.
It was a silly enough comment not to warrant more than a graphical head shake. Probably better than 8 of us responding to tell why it was
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Well, even if you hate me and fill with dislikes, here I bring you the data so that you can compare. Last month:
HoI IV: 40k https://steamdb.info/app/394360/graphs/
EU4: 20k https://steamdb.info/app/236850/graphs/
Stellaris: 20k https://steamdb.info/app/281990/graphs/
Ck3: 18k https://steamdb.info/app/1158310/graphs/
Victoria 3: 17k https://steamdb.info/app/529340/graphs/
I bring the monthly ones, although it is not a fair comparison, because some say that the weekly ones are not worth it, that they play more games and blablaba. Well, take the monthly ones. In a month he has lost half the players. And if we take into account the weekly ones, he loses more and more evere week.
The newest game and the least played, and that some are many years old. Data does not seem as bad as the Imperator, but it will depend on how the DLCs are sold and what the patches bring.
HoI IV: 40k https://steamdb.info/app/394360/graphs/
EU4: 20k https://steamdb.info/app/236850/graphs/
Stellaris: 20k https://steamdb.info/app/281990/graphs/
Ck3: 18k https://steamdb.info/app/1158310/graphs/
Victoria 3: 17k https://steamdb.info/app/529340/graphs/
I bring the monthly ones, although it is not a fair comparison, because some say that the weekly ones are not worth it, that they play more games and blablaba. Well, take the monthly ones. In a month he has lost half the players. And if we take into account the weekly ones, he loses more and more evere week.
The newest game and the least played, and that some are many years old. Data does not seem as bad as the Imperator, but it will depend on how the DLCs are sold and what the patches bring.
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This tells me that this game is difficult to learn and hard to master, and I knew both things already after playing Vic I and II...
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You should compare the releases of those games. Comparing a game that has built a cult following with a freshly released one is not very useful. Even if you take normalised player numbers around release, it's not as simple as comparing these numbers. There's a lot more that goes into a successful/unsuccessful game release.
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It isn't as if EU 4, CK 3 or HoI 4 are a walk in the park compared to learning Vic 3. They might all be comparable on that regard.
It took me about 20 hours to start getting the grasp on EU, and I bounced off hard from CK 2 after 20 hours of failing to learn the game.
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Vicky was always a niche game so I don't expect to be different for Vicky 3. It will probably stabilize around 10-15k players and will remain the least played game of the PDX stable. It won't die like imperator (which was 1k, I think) because of the setting: with recognizable countries (unlike imperator) there will always be players wanting to show off their USA with socialized medicine or Haiti conquering France. Also there will likely be popular mods, like the cold war one or alternative history ones. So I wouldn't worry about the game's future development (whether I like how it develops is another question).
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If you want to compare player drop-off after launch for different games, compare the rates of decline, not the absolute numbers.
E.g., a game starting at 50k and then trending towards 10k after two months is worse off than a game which starts at 20k and tends towards 8k after the same amount of time; the rate of decline is slower for the latter (exactly half, by accident.) This of course only tells you about relative player retention; I think we don't have enough information to predict what number of sustained players is the threshold of profitability, which ensures further development.
E.g., a game starting at 50k and then trending towards 10k after two months is worse off than a game which starts at 20k and tends towards 8k after the same amount of time; the rate of decline is slower for the latter (exactly half, by accident.) This of course only tells you about relative player retention; I think we don't have enough information to predict what number of sustained players is the threshold of profitability, which ensures further development.
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Small analysis for the early January 2023.
TLDR:. Numbers in early January 2023...are not looking great. 24hr peak dropped to 8K, and at some point, numbers dropped to just 5k active players.
Some people suggested in December that it will stabilize at 10-15k, but average number is decreasing further and further.
I expected significant increase during Christmas and New Year Holidays (lot's of free time to play games and influx of completely new players), but that didn't happen either. It seems that only most loyal V3 fans are still playing the game and influx of new players is minimal.
24h peak concurrent player number dropped by 88% (!) since launch.
24h peak Twitch viewers dropped by 98% (!!)
To compare it with some other PDX games (24h peak):
(Please keep in mind that some very old PDX games were sold also on platforms different than Steam, and Steam wasn't that popular at the time, so it's likely, that more players are still playing them).
Hearts of Iron IV: 33,775 (unbeatable numbers for some years now it seems)
Europa Universalis IV: 17,444
Stellaris: 15,669
Crusader Kings 3: 14,544 (it's surprising to see best selling PDX game ever with 98k players at launch to drop to just 14k after 2 years since release. Game has 85% drop which is not looking good either)
Victoria 3: 8282
Crusader Kings 2: 2920 (keep in mind that CK2 is free to play on Steam)
Victoria 2: 889 (Number increased to 2-3k for some time for after V3 release, which suggests some influx of V3 players)
Imperator Rome: 623 (worst performing PDX game ever; dropped to 1-2k from 42k in 3 months since launch. Numbers increased to 7k after big 2.0 Marius patch, but then dropped again, this time to "stable" 2-3k until the game was abandoned. Since that time, Imperator has ~1k active players, likely sustained by modding community through mods like Invictus. This also suggests, that ~3-7k active players is just not enough for PDX to maintain their games. I understand them, game development is costly)
Darkest Hour (Hoi 2 remaster): 144
Hearts of Iron 3: 115
Europa Universalis 3: 80
Hearts of Iron 2: 70
Arsenal of Democracy (also Hoi 2 remaster, just older than Darkest Hour): 29
For the Glory (Europa Universalis 2 remaster): 9
Victoria 1: 8
March of the Eagles: 6
Sengoku: 2 (Sengoku 2 confirmed ? )
Conclusion: sadly V3 is slowly dying
I'm not sure if big patch (1.2?) or DLC (Q2/Q3 Flavour Pack?) will be enough to completely renew active playerbase, but we will know the answer this year.
Source for the data: https://steamdb.info/
TLDR:. Numbers in early January 2023...are not looking great. 24hr peak dropped to 8K, and at some point, numbers dropped to just 5k active players.
Some people suggested in December that it will stabilize at 10-15k, but average number is decreasing further and further.
I expected significant increase during Christmas and New Year Holidays (lot's of free time to play games and influx of completely new players), but that didn't happen either. It seems that only most loyal V3 fans are still playing the game and influx of new players is minimal.
24h peak concurrent player number dropped by 88% (!) since launch.
24h peak Twitch viewers dropped by 98% (!!)
To compare it with some other PDX games (24h peak):
(Please keep in mind that some very old PDX games were sold also on platforms different than Steam, and Steam wasn't that popular at the time, so it's likely, that more players are still playing them).
Hearts of Iron IV: 33,775 (unbeatable numbers for some years now it seems)
Europa Universalis IV: 17,444
Stellaris: 15,669
Crusader Kings 3: 14,544 (it's surprising to see best selling PDX game ever with 98k players at launch to drop to just 14k after 2 years since release. Game has 85% drop which is not looking good either)
Victoria 3: 8282
Crusader Kings 2: 2920 (keep in mind that CK2 is free to play on Steam)
Victoria 2: 889 (Number increased to 2-3k for some time for after V3 release, which suggests some influx of V3 players)
Imperator Rome: 623 (worst performing PDX game ever; dropped to 1-2k from 42k in 3 months since launch. Numbers increased to 7k after big 2.0 Marius patch, but then dropped again, this time to "stable" 2-3k until the game was abandoned. Since that time, Imperator has ~1k active players, likely sustained by modding community through mods like Invictus. This also suggests, that ~3-7k active players is just not enough for PDX to maintain their games. I understand them, game development is costly)
Darkest Hour (Hoi 2 remaster): 144
Hearts of Iron 3: 115
Europa Universalis 3: 80
Hearts of Iron 2: 70
Arsenal of Democracy (also Hoi 2 remaster, just older than Darkest Hour): 29
For the Glory (Europa Universalis 2 remaster): 9
Victoria 1: 8
March of the Eagles: 6
Sengoku: 2 (Sengoku 2 confirmed
? )Conclusion: sadly V3 is slowly dying
I'm not sure if big patch (1.2?) or DLC (Q2/Q3 Flavour Pack?) will be enough to completely renew active playerbase, but we will know the answer this year.
Source for the data: https://steamdb.info/
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Rome is hardly an unrecognizable country. But I do agree that there's loads of people who are meme'ing and enjoying RPing the same thing over and over again. Youtube is full of streamers whose videos are just 'what if <insert country> went communist?' As a simulator of the premise of 'I'm telling you guys, Stalinism would have worked if *I* was Stalin,' the game does manage to hit a target market.
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A more fair comparison would be to compare to those games at a similar time after their release, since pretty much all of the games of the previous generation grew significantly over time.
I'm not sure it's an influx of Vic 3 players, but the release of Vic 3 certainly had an influx. The growth in Vic 2 numbers was visible even in the first hours after Vic 3 release, and in the days after. A significant portion therefore seems to be from people who weren't happy with what Vic 3 promised.
One of the most effective way to kill a game is to spread rumors/numbers showing that a game is dying.
Victoria 3 isn't a MMO, it doesn't need thousands of players online at the same time, connected to the same server. Nor does it need people to play it every day, every week, or even every month. What it needs is enough people interested in supporting continued development. Vic 3 have sold very well so far, and will most likely have more than enough players interested in trying out upcoming patches.
Even though I haven't bought Vic 3 myself, I don't see Paradox dropping development for the game until after they have released their next game (EU5?). The reputation cost would simply be too high after the fairly recent Imperator disaster. That probably guarantees at least a couple of years of continued development, regardless of player numbers. Players will most likely have to return for patches and DLCs for the game to "survive" beyond that though.
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Having put 300 hours into the game before abandoning it in December, I feel that at least part of the explanation of these numbers is that this game has the least replayability of all the PDX titles ever, bar none. I mean, whichever the county and situation you end up in, you always do exactly the same things: build the same buildings, fight the same IGs, pass the same laws, colonize the same areas etc etc...While some of the issues such as bugs and mechanics like warfare will improve over time without a doubt, I'm not so certain that this is something that will ever change. I really can't see how would many players invest thousands of hours into this game (like we forumites do with their other titles).
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HoI shows a lesser relative decline but also strongly declined down to 8k something post-release. That's at least the lowest I could find quick-glancing.Small analysis for the early January 2023.
TLDR:. Numbers in early January 2023...are not looking great. 24hr peak dropped to 8K, and at some point, numbers dropped to just 5k active players.
Some people suggested in December that it will stabilize at 10-15k, but average number is decreasing further and further.
I expected significant increase during Christmas and New Year Holidays (lot's of free time to play games and influx of completely new players), but that didn't happen either. It seems that only most loyal V3 fans are still playing the game and influx of new players is minimal.
24h peak concurrent player number dropped by 88% (!) since launch.
24h peak Twitch viewers dropped by 98% (!!)
To compare it with some other PDX games (24h peak):
(Please keep in mind that some very old PDX games were sold also on platforms different than Steam, and Steam wasn't that popular at the time, so it's likely, that more players are still playing them).
Hearts of Iron IV: 33,775 (unbeatable numbers for some years now it seems)
Europa Universalis IV: 17,444
Stellaris: 15,669
Crusader Kings 3: 14,544 (it's surprising to see best selling PDX game ever with 98k players at launch to drop to just 14k after 2 years since release. Game has 85% drop which is not looking good either)
Victoria 3: 8282
Crusader Kings 2: 2920 (keep in mind that CK2 is free to play on Steam)
Victoria 2: 889 (Number increased to 2-3k for some time for after V3 release, which suggests some influx of V3 players)
Imperator Rome: 623 (worst performing PDX game ever; dropped to 1-2k from 42k in 3 months since launch. Numbers increased to 7k after big 2.0 Marius patch, but then dropped again, this time to "stable" 2-3k until the game was abandoned. Since that time, Imperator has ~1k active players, likely sustained by modding community through mods like Invictus. This also suggests, that ~3-7k active players is just not enough for PDX to maintain their games. I understand them, game development is costly)
Darkest Hour (Hoi 2 remaster): 144
Hearts of Iron 3: 115
Europa Universalis 3: 80
Hearts of Iron 2: 70
Arsenal of Democracy (also Hoi 2 remaster, just older than Darkest Hour): 29
For the Glory (Europa Universalis 2 remaster): 9
Victoria 1: 8
March of the Eagles: 6
Sengoku: 2 (Sengoku 2 confirmed
Conclusion: sadly V3 is slowly dying
I'm not sure if big patch (1.2?) or DLC (Q2/Q3 Flavour Pack?) will be enough to completely renew active playerbase, but we will know the answer this year.
Source for the data: https://steamdb.info/
View attachment 937163
View attachment 937164
The game linda depends on future developments right now, no doubt there.
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Yes and no - yes inasfar as that would be more fair, but I think the best comparison point would be CK3 - EUIV and HOI IV are both too old, it seems that PDX is much more publicly visible to a wide audience now, leading to more sales but a steeper dropoff from initial months. How that plays into the cash flow for the studio is beyond my meager rock brain
CK3 lost players initially at a comparably high rate (which makes sense considering how much more popular PDX is in the general zeitgeist) and stabilized at about the number of players it had 4 months in, plus and minus some for DLC. EUIV started picking up players after 3 months and lost relatively few, but also sold to a much smaller initial audience who probably knew that they would like the game
The best way to kill a game is not to give it money - the forum-going population, at most I'd wager, comprises 500 of the concurrent players at any given time, so maybe 5% based on the current player count. The goal is to make money, and DLC sales are the most pointed cost justification that can be made for the continued development of the game.
@Brynjar
"A more fair comparison would be to compare to those games at a similar time after their release, since pretty much all of the games of the previous generation grew signoficantly over time".
- I agree, though some mentioned games are very old and were launched before Steam era so results wouldn't be perfect either.
I did quick calculation that you wanted though. Worst performing PDX games in ~3 months since launch, released in the last 10 years (so I will skip ancient games like EU3).
By worst performing, I mean % of playerbase lost in that 3 months period: Imperator (96%), Victoria 3 (88%) March of the Eagles (85%). For example, EU4 lost only ~60%.
Victoria 3 isn't a MMO, it doesn't need thousands of players online at the same time
-Please tell that to Imperator. When 2.0 Marius patch was released, playerbase grew to ~7k (number that V3 is slowly approaching).
Vic 3 have sold very well so far, and will most likely have more than enough players interested in trying out upcoming patches.
- CK3 had a lot better launch sales than V3 (2x). Active playerbase didn't increase significantly when patches like 1.06. or major 1.1 patch were released. Maybe first DLC will change that, but I'm not sure.
Even though I haven't bought Vic 3 myself, I don't see Paradox dropping development for the game until after they have released their next game (EU5?). The reputation cost would simply be too high after the fairly recent Imperator disaster. That probably guarantees at least a couple of years of continued development, regardless of player numbers.
- It would be inefficient and costly for them to sustain unprofitable game. We don't know how well first DLCs (they are forced to release at least pre order Season Pass DLCs) will sell, and if it will be profitable for them to make more. Current playerbase number (it may change of course) is worrisome though and may not guarantee long life of V3.
One of the most effective way to kill a game is to spread rumors/numbers showing that a game is dying.
- Conclusion was mine. Maybe it's wrong (hopefully).
Numbers are true though. Check SteamDB/SteamSpy yourself. Anyone can now conclude the future of the game themselves based on available data.
I don't want this game to die. However, numbers are worrisome.
"A more fair comparison would be to compare to those games at a similar time after their release, since pretty much all of the games of the previous generation grew signoficantly over time".
- I agree, though some mentioned games are very old and were launched before Steam era so results wouldn't be perfect either.
I did quick calculation that you wanted though. Worst performing PDX games in ~3 months since launch, released in the last 10 years (so I will skip ancient games like EU3).
By worst performing, I mean % of playerbase lost in that 3 months period: Imperator (96%), Victoria 3 (88%) March of the Eagles (85%). For example, EU4 lost only ~60%.
Victoria 3 isn't a MMO, it doesn't need thousands of players online at the same time
-Please tell that to Imperator. When 2.0 Marius patch was released, playerbase grew to ~7k (number that V3 is slowly approaching).
Vic 3 have sold very well so far, and will most likely have more than enough players interested in trying out upcoming patches.
- CK3 had a lot better launch sales than V3 (2x). Active playerbase didn't increase significantly when patches like 1.06. or major 1.1 patch were released. Maybe first DLC will change that, but I'm not sure.
Even though I haven't bought Vic 3 myself, I don't see Paradox dropping development for the game until after they have released their next game (EU5?). The reputation cost would simply be too high after the fairly recent Imperator disaster. That probably guarantees at least a couple of years of continued development, regardless of player numbers.
- It would be inefficient and costly for them to sustain unprofitable game. We don't know how well first DLCs (they are forced to release at least pre order Season Pass DLCs) will sell, and if it will be profitable for them to make more. Current playerbase number (it may change of course) is worrisome though and may not guarantee long life of V3.
One of the most effective way to kill a game is to spread rumors/numbers showing that a game is dying.
- Conclusion was mine. Maybe it's wrong (hopefully).
Numbers are true though. Check SteamDB/SteamSpy yourself. Anyone can now conclude the future of the game themselves based on available data.
I don't want this game to die. However, numbers are worrisome.
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Numbers aren't looking great I pray paradox fixes the game but tbh if the game dies I could be smug about being right about all my concerns pre launch when everyone was sure it was great.
But tbh I really do not want to be right about it vicky 2 is my favorite paradox title and I desperately want this game to be good.
The month holiday break only means the game has more time to sit in the state it does for people to leave and go to other games.
But tbh I really do not want to be right about it vicky 2 is my favorite paradox title and I desperately want this game to be good.
The month holiday break only means the game has more time to sit in the state it does for people to leave and go to other games.
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Paradox cannot have imagined and planned for more than 50% of what CK3 makes, given the overall popularity, familiarity and appeal of their settings and game series.
CK2 had a completely different stature in the Paradox catalog than Vic2 had.
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I can't help but wonder what we would have gotten if Vicky3 was as similar Vicky2 as CK3 was to CK2. A stripped down, prettied up, 'made for DLC' game, but still with the same core mechanics and... I hate using this phrase 'gameplay loop,' as Vicky2 had. According to Johan, the core of Vicky2 was the militancy and consciousness mechanic. Vicky3 totally dropped that. That'd be like CK3 dropping the vassal/liege system entirely.
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