This thread is partially a response to this thread, and was inspired by this article on PC Gamer's web site:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/around-266505-people-played-an-fps-on-a-pc-today/
It's also a thread where we analyze Steam statistics. Fun! :lol But seriously, I want others to criticize my logic and conclusions. I've thought about this for a while, but still can't find a hole in my logic as long as my suppositions are relatively accurate.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Top games (shooters only)
Current | Peak | Game
31,368 | 67,306 | Counter-Strike
29,303 | 72,730 | Counter-Strike: Source
29,045 | 75,250 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer
11,471 | 19,237 | Team Fortress 2
8,569 | 14,293 | Left 4 Dead 2
4,557 | 8,282 | Garry's Mod
4,494 | 6,415 | Battlefield: Bad Company 2
3,482 | 7,232 | Condition Zero
3,395 | 9,565 | Mafia II
2,654 | 7,457 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Single Player
2,464 | 5,325 | Day of Defeat: Source
2,440 | 3,845 | Left 4 Dead
How can we estimate unique players over 24 hours from concurrent player numbers?
1) X = average concurrent players over 24 hours
2) Y = for every person who played a given game, the average amount of time they played it for (in hours)
3) Total unique players for a day = X * (24/Y)
Does this make sense? Is there something I'm missing here in that equation?
Look at it this way - if a game is played on average 1.5 hours, and the average concurrent player number is 7,000, then you need 24/1.6=16 unique groups of people to fulfill that 7,000 average for the entire 24 hour day, right?
Still, I'm not confident in my math, please rip it apart :lol
Examples
Left 4 Dead 2: based on the above numbers, I think it's safe to say that 9,000 people were concurrently playing, on average, throughout the last 24-hour period.
How long does the average gamer play Left 4 Dead 2? 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours? The higher the number, the lower the number of concurrent players. For the sake of fairness since there's no way to know this number, let's say 2 hours.
That would mean that 9,000 * 24/2 = 108,000 unique people played Left 4 Dead 2 over the last 24 hours.
And that's the low-end based on pure guesses...I highly doubt the average person who played Left 4 Dead 2 yesterday, actually played it for 2 full hours.
What about Modern Warfare 2? 40,000 people on average? 50,000 people on average? Using the same figures as above (~2 hours average for each person), that would represent 480,000 to 600,000 unique people who played Modern Warfare 2 on PC yesterday.
Conclusion
I'm fully aware that there's no way for me to know how long an average play session is. That's why I estimated (what seems to me) very high. I can't imagine that the average Left 4 Dead 2 player yesterday actually played for 2 hours. But still, my guesses are strongly inflated, which in the end would hurt my conclusion (millions of people playing an FPS on PC).
Yet even by weighing every single guess I have to make against my conclusion, the conclusion is still the same. Add together all of the numbers from Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, TF2, Left 4 Dead 1/2, Bad Company 2, and more - you easily have millions of people who played an FPS on PC yesterday. Legally, of course, since only legal purchases are tracked through Steam.
And yes, I also know that 360 numbers for Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3/ODST/Reach are a lot higher. I'm not here to argue that obvious number.
But the question of whether anyone plays FPSs on PC anymore...well....I think the answer to that is quite clear
Final point:
Remember that, while Modern Warfare 2, TF2, L4D, and CS are all tied to Steam, Bad Company 2 has a shitload of people playing it who didn't buy it on Steam. They are therefore not tracked in Steam's stats.
http://bfbcs.com/
Numbers are surprisingly close among all 3 platforms.
</over-analyzing>
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/around-266505-people-played-an-fps-on-a-pc-today/
It's also a thread where we analyze Steam statistics. Fun! :lol But seriously, I want others to criticize my logic and conclusions. I've thought about this for a while, but still can't find a hole in my logic as long as my suppositions are relatively accurate.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Top games (shooters only)
Current | Peak | Game
31,368 | 67,306 | Counter-Strike
29,303 | 72,730 | Counter-Strike: Source
29,045 | 75,250 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer
11,471 | 19,237 | Team Fortress 2
8,569 | 14,293 | Left 4 Dead 2
4,557 | 8,282 | Garry's Mod
4,494 | 6,415 | Battlefield: Bad Company 2
3,482 | 7,232 | Condition Zero
3,395 | 9,565 | Mafia II
2,654 | 7,457 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Single Player
2,464 | 5,325 | Day of Defeat: Source
2,440 | 3,845 | Left 4 Dead
How can we estimate unique players over 24 hours from concurrent player numbers?
1) X = average concurrent players over 24 hours
2) Y = for every person who played a given game, the average amount of time they played it for (in hours)
3) Total unique players for a day = X * (24/Y)
Does this make sense? Is there something I'm missing here in that equation?
Look at it this way - if a game is played on average 1.5 hours, and the average concurrent player number is 7,000, then you need 24/1.6=16 unique groups of people to fulfill that 7,000 average for the entire 24 hour day, right?
Still, I'm not confident in my math, please rip it apart :lol
Examples
Left 4 Dead 2: based on the above numbers, I think it's safe to say that 9,000 people were concurrently playing, on average, throughout the last 24-hour period.
How long does the average gamer play Left 4 Dead 2? 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours? The higher the number, the lower the number of concurrent players. For the sake of fairness since there's no way to know this number, let's say 2 hours.
That would mean that 9,000 * 24/2 = 108,000 unique people played Left 4 Dead 2 over the last 24 hours.
And that's the low-end based on pure guesses...I highly doubt the average person who played Left 4 Dead 2 yesterday, actually played it for 2 full hours.
What about Modern Warfare 2? 40,000 people on average? 50,000 people on average? Using the same figures as above (~2 hours average for each person), that would represent 480,000 to 600,000 unique people who played Modern Warfare 2 on PC yesterday.
Conclusion
I'm fully aware that there's no way for me to know how long an average play session is. That's why I estimated (what seems to me) very high. I can't imagine that the average Left 4 Dead 2 player yesterday actually played for 2 hours. But still, my guesses are strongly inflated, which in the end would hurt my conclusion (millions of people playing an FPS on PC).
Yet even by weighing every single guess I have to make against my conclusion, the conclusion is still the same. Add together all of the numbers from Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, TF2, Left 4 Dead 1/2, Bad Company 2, and more - you easily have millions of people who played an FPS on PC yesterday. Legally, of course, since only legal purchases are tracked through Steam.
And yes, I also know that 360 numbers for Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3/ODST/Reach are a lot higher. I'm not here to argue that obvious number.
But the question of whether anyone plays FPSs on PC anymore...well....I think the answer to that is quite clear
Final point:
Remember that, while Modern Warfare 2, TF2, L4D, and CS are all tied to Steam, Bad Company 2 has a shitload of people playing it who didn't buy it on Steam. They are therefore not tracked in Steam's stats.
http://bfbcs.com/
Numbers are surprisingly close among all 3 platforms.
</over-analyzing>