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[Man-is-Obsolete]

More interesting to me is how has Halo held up with concurrent users in the face of BLOPS3, FO4, and Battlefront?

 

[JeffZero]

This thread is turning fucking ugly. Yeesh

Yeah. Good lord, what has happened here.

 

[Nokterian]

Maybe it'd help but that certainly didn't stop the CoD decline after those games dropped basic PC features.

Thank goodness mod support is coming next year for black ops 3 with unranked dedicated server browser on PC this will keep the game alive and well for a long time like World at War.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/treyarch-announces-mod-support-for-new-call-of-duty/

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Like others have said in this thread, I'm quite surprised by how low the total concurrent player count is. It's lower than the number of concurrent players playing Fallout 4 on Steam or Blops 3 on PS4.

 

[RedFury]

It think it's rather simple at a high enough level of abstraction:
PC gamers overall are statistically less likely to move immediately (or sometimes, at all) to the next iteration of (more or less) the same thing. You see this in everything from huge FPS franchises to even sales of direct indie game sequels. It gets more fuzzy when you try to explain why this is the case, but it surely has something to do with library size/longevity and perpetual compatibility.

CS:GO is an extreme example of course (it's ridiculous how huge it has become, and its growth curve is very unusual), but there are also e.g. more people are playing BF4 and BF3 on PC right now than on any other platform. And Civilization V is still in the top 10 most played games on Steam 5 years after its release, despite a newer game in the franchise existing.

I don't really see this as either a "bad" or a "good" thing. It's just a different market.


Completely unrelated to the above, but since I looked at them for this thread, the overall concurrent numbers for SWBF across all platforms are a bit lower than I would have expected. Maybe FO4 just gobbled up too much of the market this month with its ridiculous sales.

Could sales (discounts) be related to that retention? As a new-ish PC gamer I'm more likely to to wait and buy at discounts. You mentioned Civ V, I've never played a Civ game but have almost bought it a few times because it's on discount often and heavily. I've built up such a big back log for so cheap that I have no interest in playing the new iteration until I get through the last game, and slay some of my backlog dragon.

 

[Lingitiz]

So you are saying, 50,000-60,000 extra concurrent players would not happen if this game was on Steam? I find that a bold statement to make. I think it would, just for the convenience of it being there, and if it is there one click away, it makes it much easier to try out the game that reviewed lower than what would trigger you to go to Origin for.

I agree about the F2P, and $10 CS.

I have no problem making that statement. Steam is not the be all end of all of PC gaming, although it is a huge factor in sales. The main thing is that the game is simply not good enough. It would likely carry a mixed rating on Steam and along with a pricetag of 60 dollars, I can't see it doing gangbusters. I mean it would definitely be the top seller for a few days, but do we really think it would do better than Black Ops 3 on PC? I don't think so. If it were F2P or cheaper than a normal priced game, sure.

 

[benny_a]

CS:GO is an extreme example of course (it's ridiculous how huge it has become, and its growth curve is very unusual), but there are also e.g. more people are playing BF4 and BF3 on PC right now than on any other platform.

If you take an average over the day PC is not the most played platform for those two titles. Although having a lower total of unique players in the case of BF3 it certainly has a higher retention rate.

PC players also went back to BF4 much quicker than PS4 players, if the weekend stats I took after BFH's launch are any indication.

Overall I subscribe to this belief myself, but I don't think these two titles make that case the best.

 

[User 479360]

The numbers, collectively, seem kind of low given how much this game was marketed and that it's a Star Wars title.

 

[impact]

DOTA 2 and CS feels like the same games from the early 2000s. It might as well be a remastered CS 1.6

lmao

You don't play CS. Pretty easy to see.

 

[BlackBuzzard]

Yeah. Good lord, what has happened here.

That is what happens when somebody plays the pc master race card.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

I'm still playing PC BF4 and none of the big games released lately.

I'll pick up Fallout 4 in a few months when bugs are ironed out more and some good mods are out. I was interested in SWBF but it seems too aimed at the mainstream for my liking after playing the beta. And the newest COD is always a no-no for me.

I've also actually started playing Starcraft 2 sp in the hopes to get good enough for the mp.

 

[Papacheeks]

I posted it in the starWARS battlefront OT, and I'll try here to see if I can get this fixed:

I can't even get the game to install correctly on my PS4, keeps saying Corrupted file?

I get a corrupt symbol for the disc icon, but I just put in Dead pool from gamefly and it installed fine?

I tried rebuilding the data base, reinstalling 3.11, powered it off, clean boot.

I can't figure it out and see other's online having the same issue.

Do I just put the disc in and wait? Does the corrupt symbol go away after 20gb patch?

 

[Bastables]

They are more discerning though, this doesn't even have to be about their personal tastes. I can prove this simply by pointing out the PC is a buyers market. Where consoles often don't need nor care to be. There's a veritable cornucopia of games on PC comparitively to console. This is important because the average PC player has a wider variety of titles in their library than most console players. So it doesn't really matter if they are smarter or not, they simply have more options and that often is all it takes to make someone more discerning.

More choices cause discernment? Mate I don't think you understand the word as you've placed two independent variables in a causal relationship.

 

[Clarkus Darkus]

PC gamers typically waiting for the game to go on sale the peasants, Also when the film drops then watch sales boom on all platforms.

 

[arimanius]

I wonder if this thread will go how i think it will.

Standard Sales thread for GAF

lol I was thinking of posting the same gif.

 

[cripterion]

To imply that PC gamers make better decisions than console players is stupid.

I wouldn't say they make better decisions but seeing that the user base is younger for console players, you can definitely say it's not the same type of market.
We're doing the Sony Christmas campaign right now and most Battlefront games sold are for PS4 and bought by parents for their young ones. Wether the game is good or bad is no concern to them as they just want a Star Wars game for the kids to play.

 

[SwolBro]

More interesting to me is how has Halo held up with concurrent users in the face of BLOPS3, FO4, and Battlefront?

is there a halo number count?

 

[RoKKeR]

is there a halo number count?

No. Only way to measure is using over/under on Battlefront numbers.

 

[arimanius]

is there a halo number count?

Frankie just said the numbers are strong in the halo thread but no real numbers.

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=186302561

 

[Saty]

Wonder if and how the timid reviews affected sales. Did EA's internal reviews reflect the scores the game is getting and which they partially base sale forecasts? They did raise the forecast for Battlefront after the successful beta.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

It's now nearly 11p.m. +/-1 hour in EU and the numbers are consistent.

 

[Surface of Me]

is there a halo number count?

X1 has a "Popular Game" list which Im pretty certain is a live version of Major Nelson's old Xbox Live activity lists. Past few days I've looked Battlefront, BLOPs, Fallout, and Destiny were above Halo.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

X1 has a "Popular Game" list which Im pretty certain is a live version of Major Nelson's old Xbox Live activity lists. Past few days I've looked Battlefront, BLOPs, Fallout, and Destiny were above Halo.

Pretty funny destiny is ahead of halo. I expected fallout to be ahead absolutely tho

 

[Mister Megative]

I'm currently laughing at the idea of extrapolating sales from how many people are playing a game at a given moment.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Pretty funny destiny is ahead of halo. I expected fallout to be ahead absolutely tho

Those Bungie Loyalists, *shakes fist*

 

[Optimus Lime]

I wouldn't say they make better decisions but seeing that the user base is younger for console players, you can definitely say it's not the same type of market.

FWIW I work in education research, specifically technology-based education research, around a lot of young kids (12-18). Overwhelmingly, they are gaming on PC's, and they are playing F2P titles and/or Minecraft. I'm not so sure that the 'consoles are for kids, PC's are for grown ups' stereotypes fit as well as they once did. Obviously I can't get into the specifics of our dataset - but the kids very much indicated that they played Smite, DOTA2, CSGO, TF2 and iOS games. Pure console gamers were very much outliers.

Obviously, take all of this with a grain of salt. But, yeah. My experience of young people's engagement with gaming is very different to the one you're describing.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I have no problem making that statement. Steam is not the be all end of all of PC gaming, although it is a huge factor in sales. The main thing is that the game is simply not good enough. It would likely carry a mixed rating on Steam and along with a pricetag of 60 dollars, I can't see it doing gangbusters. I mean it would definitely be the top seller for a few days, but do we really think it would do better than Black Ops 3 on PC? I don't think so. If it were F2P or cheaper than a normal priced game, sure.

I dunno man. I think with over 12 million active users on Steam, and this game easily accessible with one click if it were on there, I think people would impulse on it just on the merits of graphics alone, to see how it looks on their rig and I think easily make 50-60,000 active users on top of the 40K+ on Origin at this current point.

But this is something we will never know, since EA wants their own platform.

 

[Joey Ravn]

That is what happens when somebody plays the pc master race card.

You've got to be kidding me. Literally in the first page:

PS4 MASTER RACE

 

[johnnydrama]

You've got to be kidding me. Literally in the first page:

lol awesome

 

[cripterion]

FWIW I work in education research, specifically technology-based education research, around a lot of young kids (12-18). Overwhelmingly, they are gaming on PC's, and they are playing F2P titles and/or Minecraft. I'm not so sure that the 'consoles are for kids, PC's are for grown ups' stereotypes fit as well as they once did. Obviously I can't get into the specifics of our dataset - but the kids very much indicated that they played Smite, DOTA2, CSGO, TF2 and iOS games. Pure console gamers were very much outliers.

Obviously, take all of this with a grain of salt. But, yeah. My experience of young people's engagement with gaming is very different to the one you're describing.

No worries, I find it interesting too and obviously I'm just saying this from my point of view having done promo work for video games in hyper markets, media shops or even Paris Games Week.

 

[tuna_love]

I dunno man. I think with over 12 million active users on Steam, and this game easily accessible with one click if it were on there, I think people would impulse on it just on the merits of graphics alone, to see how it looks on their rig and I think easily make 50-60,000 active users on top of the 40K+ on Origin at this current point.

But this is something we will never know, since EA wants their own platform.

The beauty of PC is that origin is one click away as well

 

[DeepEnigma]

The beauty of PC is that origin is one click away as well

I understand this, but you missed my original point.

Speaking of me personally. If a game was reviewing lower to the standard I hold for whatever reason, I am more inclined to purchase it on my preferred platform if it is staring me in the face just to see how great it looks, and maybe even hope for mod support or the like down the road, rather than waste my time loading up the BF3/4 player, I am probably am not playing anymore either, lol.

 

[Optimus Lime]

No worries, I find it interesting too and obviously I'm just saying this from my point of view having done promo work for video games in hyper markets, media shops or even Paris Games Week.

Yep - and I'm not minimising that. Just offering an alternative perspective. I read a lot of people commenting on the demographics across platforms, who will swear up and down that erudite gentlemen use PC gaming to escape the throngs of screaming children on the consoles - this is largely not reflected by the data, which suggests that younger audiences are very much engaged with PC gaming; not system building or performance rigs, but F2P, freemium, and low-resource titles.

 

[cripterion]

The beauty of PC is that origin is one click away as well

I dunno why some many people think Origin is the devil, hell I was denied a refund on Steam cause I went just a tad over the 2h limit even though I was just fiddling with ingame settings (NBA 2K16), while I VPN'd the Ultimate Edition of Battlefront, got to play it on the 16th here in Europe, and got my refund instantly when the game was officially out and all I had to do was pick a one liner saying that the game wasn't really fun.
Did I mention it was an insta-refund on PayPal credit and Visa card?

Also getting great speeds on Origin and you can hide your games to clean up your library. It's fucking functional and only annoyance I can think of is having another account to create.

Yep - and I'm not minimising that. Just offering an alternative perspective. I read a lot of people commenting on the demographics across platforms, who will swear up and down that erudite gentlemen use PC gaming to escape the throngs of screaming children on the consoles - this is largely not reflected by the data, which suggests that younger audiences are very much engaged with PC gaming; not system building or performance rigs, but F2P, freemium, and low-resource titles.

Oh yeah, that's absolutely true. That's pretty much the reason why I stopped playing Dota 2.

 

[Obliterator]

Well a day later the game seems to be peaking at about the same number on a Friday night. Not a ton of growth. We'll see what happens Saturday and Sunday though, maybe it'll pick up.

 

[Mad Season]

Low numbers overall, regardless

 

[Aztechnology]

More choices cause discernment? Mate I don't think you understand the word as you've placed two independent variables in a causal relationship.

So when people are given more options to choose from, you're saying they don't tend to spend more time attempting to pick the best option?

 

[-MD-]

That is what happens when somebody plays the pc master race card.

You've got to be kidding me. Literally in the first page:

 

[Bastables]

So when people are given more options to choose from, you're saying they don't tend to spend more time attempting to pick the best option?

No they don't. How much time you spend has nothing to do with sound judgment. Sound judgment is quality that is possessed irrespective of the pool to be selected. The fact you think 2 independent variables are in a causal relationship reflects poorly on your judgment.

 

[Brofist]

I dunno why some many people think Origin is the devil,.

Origin is like my attic. There is probably some cool shit up there but I can't be bothered to look.

 

[FranXico]

I dunno why some many people think Origin is the devil.

Well, not really the devil (EA), but rather the devil's son.

Although, to be fair, greater evils have risen (Konami).

 

[Mister Megative]

Low numbers overall, regardless

Ugh. This goddamn thread got toxic, yeah?

Anyway, these seem pretty much in line with what I expected. It's not that these are bad numbers on consoles. In fact, they're great. Really, they are. I think the "argh numbers are low" stems from people here having unrealistic, CoD expectations from Battlefront and that was NEVER going to happen. I mean, right now Battlefront has more live streams on PS4 than Destiny. But for context, Battlefront has 400 livestreams on PS4 at the moment. BLOPS3 has TWO THOUSAND.

Guys, these numbers are great for a multiplayer-only game on console, and as Christmas nears they'll get bigger. But come on.....you were expecting 300-400k people playing this on one system? With BLOPS3 and Fallout 4? The problem isnt the game sold poorly. It's obvious from Amazon and evidence from guys like Abdiel and JeffZero that simply isn't the case. Using these numbers as a metric for sales is ridiculous. The problem here is believing this would reach Mount Everest level CoD numbers.

 

[derExperte]

Yes, new experiences, like Counter-Strike.

The appeal of CS is that every new round feels different despite the game itself not changing much over the years. The problem with BF is that it already started to feel stale during the beta because the core gameplay just isn't all that sophisticated.

His exact quote was:



I was just pointing out that is hilariously rich considering a game like Star Citizen 'exists'.

At this point still talking about SC as if it's vaporware and will never amount to anything is.... dunno, time to move on imo. And I respect people putting their money where their mouth is and making such a project possible.

 

[Lingitiz]

I dunno man. I think with over 12 million active users on Steam, and this game easily accessible with one click if it were on there, I think people would impulse on it just on the merits of graphics alone, to see how it looks on their rig and I think easily make 50-60,000 active users on top of the 40K+ on Origin at this current point.

But this is something we will never know, since EA wants their own platform.

Except it's not one click. It's 60 dollars. That alone with a low meta critic and possibly negative steam listing is enough to keep it from an impulse buy.

 

[Renekton]

To imply that PC gamers make better decisions than console players is stupid.

Yup Payday 2 does so well on Steam despite introducing shady P2W while being arrogant about it.

 

[InsaneTiger]

I wouldn't say they make better decisions but seeing that the user base is younger for console players, you can definitely say it's not the same type of market.
We're doing the Sony Christmas campaign right now and most Battlefront games sold are for PS4 and bought by parents for their young ones. Wether the game is good or bad is no concern to them as they just want a Star Wars game for the kids to play.

A lot of preconceived notions.

 

[InsaneTiger]

I'm still playing PC BF4 and none of the big games released lately.

I'll pick up Fallout 4 in a few months when bugs are ironed out more and some good mods are out. I was interested in SWBF but it seems too aimed at the mainstream for my liking after playing the beta. And the newest COD is always a no-no for me.

I've also actually started playing Starcraft 2 sp in the hopes to get good enough for the mp.

LOL

 

[Artex]

I didn't play for the past 3 days and suddenly spawn camping is a thing on hoth? Is this just the effect of the masses unlocking the jump pack? Mad dudes chilling on the rocks around the first Imperial spawn.

 

[derExperte]

I didn't play for the past 3 days and suddenly spawn camping is a thing on hoth? Is this just the effect of the masses unlocking the jump pack? Mad dudes chilling on the rocks around the first Imperial spawn.

It was a thing in the beta.

 

[Lingitiz]

To imply that PC gamers make better decisions than console players is stupid.

I don't think anyone can deny that the markets are different though. I think people often look at headlines like these and jump to uninformed conclusions about the state of PC gaming.

No one should be looking at this statistic and saying "lol why do devs even bother with PC look at those low numbers." It's simply a different and more competitive market, and Battlefront is a game tailored for the console audience, on top of arguably being a mediocre game.