A New new low

I saw some social media posts about BF2042 dropping to under 1K players on Steam.

Well, we now have a few new milestones:

1. New all-time low player count of 832 ☹️

2. 5 straight days without the high player count hitting 2K

3. Average player count in last week is under 1500

At this rate, they may hit a low of 500 players at some point before S1 is released. The game has pretty much zero replayability. It is truly unbelievable.

I just don't understand how EA/DICE cannot see that adding a standard/traditional/normal/not legacy server browser with persistent servers and lobbies would significantly help to bring back a solid player base. There are a lot of players that can't even play due to MM, and a slew of others that don't play due to MM. This is not rocket science.

discussion

TAW_Rinko
4 years ago
@Psubond wrote:
@Adamonic Steam is a fraction of the playerbase and, while i recognize that the player numbers are WAY down, steam numbers in a cross platform, cross generation title that is also sold on other websites does not carry as much weight as it usually does. All the players arent concentrated on steam
Let me rephrase this a little.
Steam is the only platform that publishes live data like this. All other platforms make it very hard indeed to get this kind of information, if at all.
Therefore, the Steam count is our only, verifiable, data point.
It gives us a sharp curve down, very sharp. The sort of curve that, if you were committed to a live service game, would keep you up at night.
The problem with your position is that you offer no countering data, you just reject the implication of the incomplete data we have. Instead you substitute anecdotal data, which is simply not a valid counter. There aren't enough of you to make it so.
I think the thing we can take from the Steam data is that the player count has dropped, and is dropping, quickly. Players who live in densely populated areas of the world can find games via mm, but that's an artefact of population density, not a rebuttal of the rest of the data. People who live in less densely populated areas are having huge issues finding matches via mm.
Unless you can offer some actual data that counters the narrative the Steam numbers tell, then we have to take it as indicative.

23 Replies

JasonVoorHeesxD
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@Adamonic This is what happens when a company deceives its customers and sells an unfinished, low-quality product.

Sad that my favorite game franchise is in this state.
UP_LordPlumber
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
Do people get off from watching BF2042 Steam charts?
Yes the game had super low amount of players. So what? Do you have to make a post/thread every time it drops 10 more players compared to last time you checked? I mean I see these all over the place. Twitter, YouTube, now forums ever since it droped below 1k lowest. Big deal...
TAW_Rinko
4 years ago
@UP_LordPlumber wrote:
Yes the game had super low amount of players. So what? ....Big deal...
Yes, its a big deal.
It makes it increasingly hard for those still left to find a game with the appalling MM system.
Of course, almost since launch, there have been calls for a server browser on these fora and others.
Which would make a difference to a lot of people, but for some reason Dice seem to not care if their customers enjoy their game or, apparently, if they even have any customers.
Psubond
Legend
4 years ago
@TAW_Rinko Yea, but do we really need updates everytime it gets lower?
TAW_Rinko
4 years ago
@Psubond wrote:
@TAW_RinkoYea, but do we really need updates everytime it gets lower?
Serious question, why does it bother you?
At worst its a bit tedious, at best it helps concentrate any remaining minds at Dice.
And it has the added value of being true. The player base has collapsed and appears to be finally bottoming out, albeit at an unsustainably small population that is only made worse by the poor MM system.
Why is pointing this fact out worse than endless posts suggesting Dice just remake BF4?
Adamonic
Legend
4 years ago
I just felt like it was important and gave a suggestion to help fix the problem.
The bigger issue is thread cr4pping, why even post if all you are gonna do is complain about the post?
If you don't have any constructive to say or have a potential solution, you are just making noise. Just go to another post or make your own complaining about all the posts that you don't agree with.
No one is posting every 10 players, exaggerate much? 17% drop when you are already at 1K players on Steam is significant because regional MM makes most modes unplayable for a lot of players.
Psubond
Legend
4 years ago
@Adamonic This thread was about as constructive as my post. Steam is a fraction of the playerbase and, while i recognize that the player numbers are WAY down, steam numbers in a cross platform, cross generation title that is also sold on other websites does not carry as much weight as it usually does. All the players arent concentrated on steam
X-Sunslayer-X
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@Psubond gernerally i'd agree but i would be suprised if the trend on any other platform would not be comparable...
watched a streamer the other day playing at his prime time 17:30 his time i'd say 128-player breaktrough and there were 36 player in that server the rest were bots.... he plays with cross play enabled. that is just a sad state of affair for any game less then a half a year old
Psubond
Legend
4 years ago
@X-Sunslayer-X I get full games every time i play on xbox one. I havent seen a bot in a long time
Adamonic
Legend
4 years ago
@Psubond Steam is a snapshot of the overall playerbase.

Steam is roughly half of the PC players, and PC players are roughly 1/3 of all the players, so Steam is approximately 16.6% of the entire player base, so 1K on Steam is 6K total. If you take into account just crossplay players, that ends up being something like 4500 active players worldwide before you even break it down by regions. That is insanely low when you have 7 modes plus Portal to break those players down even further. In the end there is a good chance that 4 modes will not have enough players to start a match and the other 3 modes will have only 1 or 2 active servers.

If Steam drops to 500 players, that would equate to 1-2 servers total being active in any given region for all game modes. You might as well end support for the game there as it would unplayable for more players than the ones playing.