Forum Discussion
it should be my decision. If I'm happy with longer Q times in favour off playing with other pc players (aimbot-less and recoilles) then that's my thing to decide and not EA/Dice. I've been a long time player of BF (BF2 and up) but this one will certainly be the last. EA/Dice have killed the franchise for good by making this kind of stupide decisions, let alone the ***** matchmaking. Where are the days when you could run your own servers with your own rules, mods etc
EA needs to heed their customer's feedback here. Even if the option impacts the ability to fill lobbies faster, then so be it. DICE has filled the gap of empty games by filling it with bots. PC population won't affect crossplay matches as the matchmaking will fill the slots with more players that are from other platforms or with bots. The problem isn't the population, its the matchmaking. Most players won't change their gaming platform just for one title, they are used to what they have. However, it seems like EA want's to push players off the PC platform by delivering a poor quality product and experience. I could go on about graphics rendering for consoles but that's a different topic.
Activeplayer.io updates the player count on Steam, routinely. There is no denying that the all-time peak is a clear sign of PC players not being happy with the product. Yes, I acknowledge that Steam charts are not the end-all, be-all mother of statistics but it shouldn't be excluded when doing calculations on player populations. I won't deny fad-chasing or experience-hope of a newly released game and successful advertise campaigning. EA delivered on bringing in cash to their company with this game.
Even now, only roughly 6-7% of players are playing on PC.
Sales and Player Statistics
Let's see how well EA did as a distributor of Battlefield 6.
- TOTAL Launch Sales Breakdown (6.5–7 Million Units)
- PC (Steam): 56.7% share (Over 3.5 million copies)
- PlayStation 5: 23.7% share (Over 1.5 million copies)
- Xbox Series X|S: 19.6% share (Over 1.2 million copies)
Player-to-Sales Statistical Breakdown
- Metric Type | Baseline Number | % of Launch Units Sold (7 Million)
- Launch Week Sales Volume | 7,000,000 Copies | 100%
- Estimated Launch Peak CCU | 1,465,568 Players | 20.94%
- Current Active CCU Average | 81,300 Players | 1.16%
By rudimentary calculations, the units sold to the players, and those current playing (CCU) is a whopping 1.16%. That's 1% of people who bought the game, actually playing it. (Remember, launch statistics.)
Current Player Base
As for console players, PlayStation and Xbox data isn't tracked publicly. The industry estimates place the total cross-platform player count at roughly 2.5 to 3 times the PC population during daily peak hours. If we do simple math and round the PC players to 47,000 concurrent players and multiply them by 2.5 to get an idea of what the console player base is, we get approximately 117,500 concurrent players. Lets add the 47,000 from the PC platform back into the total count to give us an estimate of 164,500 concurrent players across all platforms.
We already see the disproportion of the different platforms. Console only crossplay will not suffer as they own the lion's share of the matches and player base. PC players own less than a 1/3 of the player base and will be impacted by PC only when crossplay is disabled.
Community Split
Some of you will reply "see, PC players need crossplay to fill matches" but that is not the point we are trying to make here. Even if every platform (PC, XBox, PS) all had independent matchmaking exclusive to their platform, you'd still have the same problem with empty matches and bot filled games. Console only crossplay benefits from a simplified platform and input balances. PC players will see some what noticeable increase in wait times or a game will spin up without players and fill with bots until players join through the matchmaking system. The point being made is that PC players should ALSO have the OPTION to disable crossplay. Again, let me make that clear... the OPTION of enabling or disabling crossplay. Just because a PC player WANTS the option doesn't mean its going to ruin the matchmaking for the ENTIRE player population. We'll likely see PC players re-enable crossplay to get faster matches and that's how it should be. The freedom to choose to play with and against other players, on other platforms. EA shouldn't be mandating how we play with each other. Instead, try to deliver on what the community wants. The thing we want the most of all is transparency, clarity and accountability when they get it wrong. There is a litany of problems with the game that the community gets zero transparency on and we have to feel the pain of game changing balances and mechanics that ultimately cause more problems than solve. Resulting in additional loss of trust.
Hindsight
DICE and EA did a fantastic job of delivering on an ad campaign instead of focusing on player expectations and experiences. The glaring 1% player base is enough for EA shareholders wonder wtf just happened. Those shareholders are absolutely wondering what the next installment of the franchise will be if they can't retain more than 1% of the player base from their launch day sales. Seeing the slide with the BF franchise and the other games EA distributes is probably why EA was sold. Rats jumping off a very large sinking ship.
Feel free to @ your favorite CM or dev. I would certainly like to see more official statistics and EA's response on this ever evolving, and growing sentiment from their customers. Ignoring this feedback may prove costly for EA (or the new shareholders) in the near and long term future.
- Raansu862 months agoSeasoned Ace
admphi wrote:
There is no denying that the all-time peak is a clear sign of PC players not being happy with the product.
It really isn't. That dropoff was going to happen regardless. Literally happens to **bleep** near every game.
- d69fd7d9150d78c92 months agoRising Veteran
you sure love defending this game tooth and nail.
to go from nearly 700,000 active players to barely getting 50,000 players in less than a year is not a normal player drop.
Yes player drops happen but not to this degree and it's so funny watching you defend this game tooth and nail day in day out on the forums.- Raansu862 months agoSeasoned Ace
d69fd7d9150d78c9 wrote:
you sure love defending this game tooth and nail.
to go from nearly 700,000 active players to barely getting 50,000 players in less than a year is not a normal player drop.
Yes player drops happen but not to this degree and it's so funny watching you defend this game tooth and nail day in day out on the forums.Arc Raiders saw the same kind of drop off. The finals saw the same kind of drop off. Games drop off hard these days. Its pretty normal.
I find it more weird how much people complain about good games.