Anyone seen the numbers in terms of sales and player numbers?

These numbers have been posted multiple times, and don't really serve much purpose outside of stirring people up.  It's not a secret that this year's game has been a decent flop, but those numbers also don't take console sales, EA Play, or other subscription services into account.

I'm not happy with the game.  A lot of people aren't.  But this doesn't tell the full story, nor does it produce any kind of productive conversation.

There's no harm in having the conversation. It certainly helps people understand why their leagues and player numbers might be struggling on F1 24....

It's also hopefully a kick up the backside to EA/CM and the Devs not to take its players for granted, and they'll need an enormous improvement on the next game.

I've pre-ordered every single game in the series since F1 2010, but for the first time in 15 years, I won't be buying F1 25 at launch. I got burned this year spending £89.99 on one of the worst games in the series. Price goes up, quality goes down. If F1 25 is a copy and paste job again, I'll give up on the franchise and call it a day with league racing. 

I don't disagree, but I'd agree with you more if the conversation hadn't already been had, ad nauseum, for the last several months/years.  Content creators, eSports players, and League players have all been criticizing this release since day 1, so there shouldn't be any secrets as far as why Leagues or multiplayer isn't as active as it used to be in previous years.  The game is still buggy and unremarkable, the franchise is in its death throes, and this has been well-known and discussed for quite awhile now.

EA as a company doesn't care about the player base.  It is a mindless corporate entity that doesn't think about whether or not it's taking customers for granted.  As long SOME profit is there, the system won't change.  The people who DO care about the player base are here.  CMs, Champions, Devs, etc.  But they aren't in a position to change anything with EA's strategy or project lifecycles.

EA knows that this franchise will sell copies again next year.  And the year after that.  And the year after that.  And they know it'll be enough to cover their bottom line.  As long as those numbers get hit, the corporation couldn't care less how the players feel, nor what the Steam player counts say.

Best thing any of us can do is just not buy F1 25, 26, and so on.  But trying to get a game's player base to do that on a scale that would make any real impact is near-impossible.

I'm honestly amazed I haven't been banned already. lol

But seriously though, I try to be fair in my criticisms and not take my frustration out on the devs or anyone on this forum.  It's about posting productive feedback with details and ideas for solutions.  Most people just want to complain or post half-informed information (like Steam player counts) to stir up drama and get their internet dopamine for the day.  It doesn't actually help anything.  Player counts are data that EA has at their disposal at all times.  You're not telling them anything they don't already know.

If people really want to help themselves and make as much of a difference as possible, they need to just stop spending their money.

@SDGMatt You were definitely right about the Season 3 cosmetics prediction though, lol.

@TigerAlen410 If you'll allow me to answer your question with another question...

The player numbers dropped by about 600,000 from F1 21 to F1 23.  F1 23 came out while F1 24 was being developed.  So, EA knew how much the player count had dropped WHILE F1 24 was being worked on.

Do you think if EA was concerned about the player count drop, they would have made sure that F1 24 was a good enough product to get those 600,000 players back? 

I think if they cared about player count drop, they would have made very sure that F1 24 was good enough to get those players back.  But F1 24 clearly was not given enough time or attention to be good enough to do that.

Corporations are about hitting yearly profit targets.  If the target is hit, then anything else past that is just money in pocket and (sometimes) gets given back to employees as end of year compensation.  It seems to me like they've still been hitting those yearly targets, otherwise they'd be re-thinking their development and project strategy.  And to be honest, that may be happening.  But we'll never know.

Granted - F1 24 has been on sale pretty much constantly since launch.  This to me says that this year's numbers may not be hitting their planned target for the 2024 fiscal year, and they're trying to get people to buy it on a discount so the monetary gap gets filled before EOY earnings calls (the fiscal year closes out in a couple weeks). 

So, to answer your original question - I think the fact that this game is on sale non-stop tells me that someone somewhere in EA may finally be getting worried about the returns they're getting (or not getting) on this franchise.  Will it change how they handle future installments?  Who knows.  But based on how EA has handled FIFA/FC, Madden, etc. I'm not holding my breath.

@TigerAlen410 Yes & no, regarding that chart I think it's important to consider a lot of that peak in sales was unsustainable. Covid keeping people inside and the DTS boom certainly played a big part in the massive jump in sales of 2020. Comparing F1 24 to 2019 the numbers are still not good, but not nearly as dire.

Also worth noting that microtransactions were not in the game in 2019 and there was not a "champions edition" available to purchase. I don't know what the numbers are but depending on how much people have spent on MTX there's a path to making more money from fewer game sales. 

While most of us here on the forums are not pleased with the direction the franchise is headed, I'm sure EA has crunched the numbers enough to know what's profitable.

@SDGMattYour probably right, and I wasn't trying to say that they broke even, sales are clearly down. But even just buying the Champions edition is equivalent to paying for a game and half from the 2010's, so they aren't bleeding money that fast...

I'm sure they were expecting sales to be better than they've been (as Grumps pointed out that's probably why there have been so many discounts) but using 1M+ sales as the benchmark for copies sold isn't realistic. Things were always going to drop off at some point when the pandemic settled down and the F1 popularity bubble burst.