The line goes up!

[ItThatAltersSanity]

Yeah, just lump everyone who disagrees with you into a bogeyman out-group and shove x under their posts instead of tackling the pros and cons of their points. I get it, this is actually very normal and comforting behaviour in human nature, but it is wrong

You are aware of this psychological phenomenon yet you did not take adequate steps to mitigate the risk. By not regulating your tone and curating your choice of words, you invite the impression that you do not care that your message is heard, only that you want to vent. Simply saying "this behaviour is wrong" means not taking responsibility for politely grooming. Humans aren't going to live up to ideal behaviour.

 

[Brynjar]

The reason for posting it is to provide the metrics we are working with and to show that Victoria 3 player numbers are looking good. The numbers are still from Steam, but as mentioned: We work with Daily and Monthly active users. Not concurrent or average player numbers.

The numbers doesn't really tell us anything without something useful to compare them to though. I would be very interested in seeing your numbers for how many of those people who plays for more than for example 30 minutes. I recently fired up Imperator, but closed the game again before unpausing.

I would also be interested in hearing a ballpark figure for where you would consider the number to go from being good to ok, and from ok to bad. I would also love to see what kind of numbers Imperator had around its 1.2 and 2.0 release (and other games at similarly important patches).

And, of this number, a third of these players participated in open beta - which is an extremely high participation rate!

That's probably more of an indication of what state the game was in prior to 1.2...

Also, the 1.2 release also happened around the beginning of the Steam sale where the game was being sold at -20% for the first time. Do you have any numbers for what percentage of the post 1.2 increase that was caused by new players who for whatever reason chose not to buy the game prior to 1.2/the sale?

Okay, but where did you get the daily active users stat from? What's the source? Can I go and get these figures as well, so I can show them in their full context instead of just the small snippet you showed to make it seem good?

It's extremely common to give your businesspartners access to more data than what is made publicly available. I'm not sure why you would expect Steam to be an exception to that practice.

 

[Troyen]

So I got curious and overlayed the concurrent players graph

View attachment 959774

I simply resized it to get approximate total numbers for the past week, which isn't accurate, you can see that it doesn't fit exactly, but it gives us some idea

View attachment 959778

This doesn't seem right. The Paradox graph looks like each data point is an individual day (dunno why they didn't label the X axis, but Open Beta did not start March 8, it started in Feb). Whereas the steam graph you overlayed is showing multiple points during each day for the past week. You'd need to compare the peaks for each day for the past month and a half. The peaks in the PDX graph represent weekends, not peak hours.

Regardless, it seems like the actual numbers are about 6x higher than peak numbers, which makes sense for a game with an international audience.

 

[Brynjar]

This doesn't seem right. The Paradox graph looks like each data point is an individual day (dunno why they didn't label the X axis, but Open Beta did not start March 8, it started in Feb). Whereas the steam graph you overlayed is showing multiple points during each day for the past week. You'd need to compare the peaks for each day for the past month and a half. The peaks in the PDX graph represent weekends, not peak hours.

This is correct. The dev diary chart clearly has two data points which are higher than the following five datapoints, a pattern which is repeated until the 1.2 release. Each data point in the dev diary therefore seems to indicate a day, with the high points being Saturdays and Sundays. This also matches what the chart is said to show. Paradox do seem to have misplaced the 1.2 release point on Sunday the 12th instead of Monday the 13th though. That was probably done intentionally to clearly illustrate that the increase on patch day happened after the patch release, but calling it the last day before 1.2 release would be more accurate. That would place the 1.2 beta on February 8th in their chart, as expected.

 

[Achgelis]

I launched the game for about 15 seconds to grab a quick screenshot I needed. I'm counted in Paradox's playercount graph.

Respectfully disagree with a factual statement

Especially that they are selling it, as more "players" mean that they like the game. But if you play the game and want to refund, but you already were in the broken MP lobby for 2h because you wanted to see the broken mess of a game yourself then you can't, but paradox will take you as a happy customer.

 

[praftd]

Spud's V2 cult follows him everywhere is seems.

I never will understand why people dedicate so much time and energy to a game they hate so much.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

I returned to the game after 1.2 released, and honestly I am very happy with it. There is plenty of room for growth, but many/most of my concerns with 1.0 have been corrected.

 

[VineFynn]

I kind of feel it's a reaction to the obsession some players have over the number counts for this game, which in itself is a reaction to the fate of Imperator (in that that game's loss of engagement led to it being shelved).

Honestly it strikes me as a reasonable reaction, if anyone's to "blame" it's Paradox.

 

[Messy]

Vic 3 GDP go brrrr

 

[BjornB]

It's inspiring to see how much passion for the topic you guys have

One of the main reasons for posting this graph was to show you guys the numbers we are looking at, and that we are pleased with how they look right now. We decided to share it because a lot of people are being very interested in our player numbers and they are being discussed frequently in the community, so we thought we'd share some numbers not readily available to everyone.

It's not uncommon for our GSG's to start out slower and build momentum, a curve Victoria 3 is following.

Thanks again for your interest and staying with the game! <3

 

[darkyodada]

It's inspiring to see how much passion for the topic you guys have

One of the main reasons for posting this graph was to show you guys the numbers we are looking at, and that we are pleased with how they look right now. We decided to share it because a lot of people are being very interested in our player numbers and they are being discussed frequently in the community, so we thought we'd share some numbers not readily available to everyone.

It's not uncommon for our GSG's to start out slower and build momentum, a curve Victoria 3 is following.

Thanks again for your interest and staying with the game! <3

Could we have the same for imperator? See even for others as long as it's done.

 

[Baalzamon85]

It's inspiring to see how much passion for the topic you guys have

One of the main reasons for posting this graph was to show you guys the numbers we are looking at, and that we are pleased with how they look right now. We decided to share it because a lot of people are being very interested in our player numbers and they are being discussed frequently in the community, so we thought we'd share some numbers not readily available to everyone.

It's not uncommon for our GSG's to start out slower and build momentum, a curve Victoria 3 is following.

Thanks again for your interest and staying with the game! <3

I appreciate knowing that Paradox is pleased because it's the only thing that actually matters to us consumers who want Victoria to fulfill it's potential.

Concurrent player numbers aren't that interesting to me right now anyways because they only show what amount of players think the game is good enough to play right now. The engagement on the Victoria forum far exceeds any other paradox game which shows that users truly see potential in the game in the future and that engagement is what will lead to lots of DLC buyers wanting to see that improvement and a prolonged lifecycle for the game.

If people weren't posting on the forums and signing up for BETAs i would be more worried, but even so I would wait for sales numbers of a couple of DLC before drawing any conclusions.

 

[Spudgun_]

Spud's V2 cult follows him everywhere is seems.

I never will understand why people dedicate so much time and energy to a game they hate so much.

When you've got nothing to say about the substance, just personally attack and dismiss them as a cult. And fail to understand that real scrutiny will improve something.

 

[Skylax]

Wouldn't that be a small tackle towards the imperator players? If this is the case it is not very fair play towards the players of a game which has been abandoned without explanation and without warning the players.

The same thing happened to Empire of Sin. It is even worse for this game as people who bought the most expensive version were promised two DLCs to be included. However, they completely abandonded the game after one DLC. The game is still broken.

Vicky3 is almost too big to fail for Paradox, but I actually believe that the player count is going downwards again. I tried out the game after the patch and quickly dropped it again, as it simply doesn't catch me. Importing/exporting is just difficult to overview if it is worth it. I find myself building factories or fields, waiting for them to be finished, trying to import/export expensive goods and seeing the living conditions of all my pops go up. That's boring as hell. I don't see what kind of industry is worth it, I don't see what kind of goods other countries need, I don't see how producing goods for other countries improves the relation to those countries, I don't battle for market share in certain good with other countries - it's just all bland and boring.

I bought a version that includes the first DLC, so I will check back in after that has been released but as of right now, I am not investing time nor money in this game.

 

[Agamidae]

This doesn't seem right ... The peaks in the PDX graph represent weekends, not peak hours.

You're right, I'm a dumbass. In my defense I was sleepy.
This is how it should look:

It actually matches very closely, except for the past week.
TLDR, we can multiply the concurrent number by 5 to get approximate daily players.

I wonder what the total monthly players are. I know for HoI4 it's about 37 times the average concurrent, but HoI is also on gamepass, which skewes the numbers.

 

[Skylax]

Concurrent player numbers aren't that interesting to me right now anyways because they only show what amount of players think the game is good enough to play right now. The engagement on the Victoria forum far exceeds any other paradox game which shows that users truly see potential in the game in the future and that engagement is what will lead to lots of DLC buyers wanting to see that improvement and a prolonged lifecycle for the game.

Holy shit. Sorry, there is so much wrong with this. This game has been released 6 months ago, 4/5th of the buyers don't think the game is good enough to play right now and you think this is fine because we will get many DLCs we can buy based on forum participation?

I mean graphs and player count aside, this game has a solid fanbase, people were hyped for the game, Vic3 had been a meme on this forum forever, before they actually announced it. It is troubling to see such a huge drop-off in numbers. DLCs are fine when they introduce new mechanics but the base game shouldn't be bad enough to drive 4/5th of the buyers away. I have always defended Paradox's DLC policy especially for Stellaris, EU IV, HoI IV - but if we start treating the vanilla release as some kind of Alpha-period in game development, I will abandon ship.

Also: HoI and Stellaris, while also dropping in popularity, released new mechanics within 190 days to re-spark interest in their games. Seeing Vicky3 player numbers quickly dropping again to previous levels after the release of the patch, I doubt that autonomous investment is enough to do the same for Vicky. The DLC has to be great and it has to arrive quickly.

 

[darkyodada]

The same thing happened to Empire of Sin. It is even worse for this game as people who bought the most expensive version were promised two DLCs to be included. However, they completely abandonded the game after one DLC. The game is still broken.

Vicky3 is almost too big to fail for Paradox, but I actually believe that the player count is going downwards again. I tried out the game after the patch and quickly dropped it again, as it simply doesn't catch me. Importing/exporting is just difficult to overview if it is worth it. I find myself building factories or fields, waiting for them to be finished, trying to import/export expensive goods and seeing the living conditions of all my pops go up. That's boring as hell. I don't see what kind of industry is worth it, I don't see what kind of goods other countries need, I don't see how producing goods for other countries improves the relation to those countries, I don't battle for market share in certain good with other countries - it's just all bland and boring.

I bought a version that includes the first DLC, so I will check back in after that has been released but as of right now, I am not investing time nor money in this game.

If what you say about Empire of Sin is true, and if they have really stopped developing the game (I haven't seen any announcement to that effect, but Imperator either, you'll tell me) it's an absolute shame. Limit it will deserve a complaint from the players to be reimbursed by paradox.

 

[Troyen]

Holy shit. Sorry, there is so much wrong with this. This game has been released 6 months ago, 4/5th of the buyers don't think the game is good enough to play right now and you think this is fine because we will get many DLCs we can buy based on forum participation?

That's a...strange expectation. Since we're throwing around third-party sites, SteamSpy says the median total playtime for HoI 4 is 48 hours. HoI 4 has been out since 2016. Do you consider that game a failure, given that 4/5ths of the buyers clearly aren't playing the game all the time? The median playtime for HoI4 over the past two weeks is listed as 7 hours, which suggests most people playing a game aren't obsessively playing it literally all the time or even every day. There are plenty of obligations and other activities or games competing for attention. (FWIW, the median total playtime for Vic 3 is listed as 32 hours.)

As with blockbuster movies, the biggest weekends are immediately after a release, but then interest dies down. However, there's a long tail of revenue as new viewers come in after the crowd dies down. At least in the US, a movie will make roughly 3-4x its opening weekend in total revenue unless it was an absolute flop. Unlike movies, games often rarely are pulled from sale. Someone upthread posted the sales numbers for an EU4 expansion, which showed that it sold about as much over each of the two years following release as it did when it was released, as people come along and discover games years after they came out.

If you looked at the many comparitive games in the genre, even outside PDX (heck, even outside GSG), there's always a significant spike after a release that dies down after a couple weeks. The concurrent numbers for those games, which we know are a significant underestimate of the actual player counts, often show spikes of 3-4x or higher, which indicates a healthy number of people will hop back into a game that they haven't played for a while.

But the most important number for Paradox is how many people will buy the DLC because that determines whether or not they're losing or making money off continued development of the game. Specifically the second major DLC, since the first was bundled in with pre-order hype and so the second DLC is the one that'll have to stand on its own merits (though people buying music and art packs will help fund development as well). I don't think they know that exact number, so the next best number is to estimate a floor based off the MAU (which wasn't provided but PDX certainly has).

 

[maxk94]

As you can tell from the developer diaries and open beta, the Victoria 3 team hasn’t really stopped working since we released the game back in October. We are very lucky to work on this title and are full of ideas. We have so much we want to share about what we are working on, and we will share news on that very soon.

Our enthusiasm is sustainable because your response to the game has been equally enthusiastic. The numbers don’t lie.

View attachment 959743

Our data shows that tens of thousands of people are playing Victoria 3 every day, a humbling reminder that we have the greatest and most dedicated fanbase one could ever wish for. And, of this number, a third of these players participated in open beta - which is an extremely high participation rate!

These numbers give us strength! Your input, whether it is through the open beta process or constructive feedback on the forum, Reddit or social media, has been invaluable in pushing us to keep revisiting and revising our beloved game.

With 1.2 now live, we’d like to take this chance to thank everyone who contributed feedback and comments during the open beta. Your participation in this community endeavor makes Victoria 3 a better game!

Thank you for this openness !

 

[MathyM]

When you've got nothing to say about the substance, just personally attack and dismiss them as a cult. And fail to understand that real scrutiny will improve something.

“I pray for your downfall” isn’t scrutiny. There is plenty of valid criticism in the forum and other media, but blatant negativity and insults just serve to discourage the dev team and accelerate the end of the game’s development cycle. The cult is doing a lot of harm for the very little good they think they’re doing.

Constructive criticism is what led to the GDP formula fix, strategic objective designation, and naval invasion improvements. Plain negativity just leads to flamewar and less interest from devs. If we can stick to a less confrontational form of feedback, we are more likely to get the updates that we actually desire.