ESO Population Declining @ SteamCharts

Ardaghion

idk wrote: »

Ardaghion wrote: »

idk wrote: »

.

Lab3360 wrote: »

You also have BDO breathing down eso's neck. I much better done mmo for pvp in every aspect.

Pretty much little chance of BDO taking away much of the ESO pie. The PvE is virtually non-existent for starters. End game is pretty pathetic and combat is pretty pathetic. Yes, lag is not an issue but then again there is not much in the game to cause lag.

Hey, if you like BDO then good for you but serous players in ESO that tried BDO came back really quick because of how little it offered.

I did a comparison of the 1 year Steam chart for ESO vs. BDO, quite enlightening.

Glad you found it enlightening. It is pretty much irrelevant it does not say much. I am sure some find the simplistic combat easier. Of course the PvE is pretty much pathetic and abysmal as it is mostly an open world PvP game. The Zones load much better because there is not much there. Pretty pathetic in the PvE MMORPG world but at least you find a comparison where you can not demonstrate any correlation enlightening. Good for you.

What I found enlightening is that the graphs were pretty even besides one point where BDO spiked considerably and then went back to it's usual track. To me that looks like a lot of people tried BDO during one period and most found it lacking.

scorpius2k1

Tandor wrote: »

First, I don't believe that Steam players represent 25% of the total playerbase. I don't believe they even represent 25% of the PC playerbase (which is understood to be about 33% of the total playerbase as the three platforms are said to be evenly split player-wise).

Second, we can't say - because we don't know - that there has been a permanent loss of players in recent months.

When was anything said about permanent losses or correctness in numbers? That's a bit of a misinterpretation, the entire post said THEORETICAL. Can you deny that it's a bit alarming player LOSSES happen when a yearly chapter comes out vs seeing player GAINS? Do you honestly believe Standalone has a special place here? Think about it. 25%, 33%, 50%...it really doesn't matter what you or I believe OR what the exact figure is for Steam, because those metrics still show a real and very clear trend from actual players which can easily be expected to see some similarities GAME-WIDE since BOTH are on the SAME platform. Also, where has it been said and understood that Standalone, Steam, and Console are equally split percentages of the playerbase? Was it ZoS that stated this or another player theory? Genuinely interested.

Tandor wrote: »

Reduced daily logins doesn't automatically equate to players leaving the game, nor does it automatically equate to canceled subscriptions and falling revenue. I've logged in a lot less to ESO in the past month as I've been playing WoW Classic too, but my two 6 monthly ESO subscriptions are entirely unaffected and will continue to be so. There will be plenty of other players in the same position.

...Nor does it automatically equate to players actually coming back and resubbing that have left for any reason. There will also be plenty of players in the exact opposite position here too. No guarantees whatsoever, two sides to the unbiased viewpoint.

Tandor wrote: »

Whatever the truth of all this may or may not be, the only certainty is that we don't have a real clue what the numbers are or what their long-term significance is. If the Steam figures are representative of an overall decline, and it's a big "if", then clearly ZOS will want to address that. Whether they should do so by pausing the changes and focusing on other things for a while or pressing on and finishing the changes so they're done and over with is a moot point.

The POINT being, standalone versions very likely share similar drop offs/gains, just in different percentages which is all I made a point of. Again, theoretical here, but It's HIGHLY likely if drop offs are seen on Steam that Standalone would also see the similar trends since we are on the PC platform here, but likely in higher volumes for Standalone since we assume there are more players there. Simple 101 metric logic behind that, it's not hard to understand and forecast the unknowns within a expectational margin. The constant defense that just because it's Steam "it doesn't matter as much" *shrug*, which is the typical attitude, seems a bit of biased ignorance and denial when the bigger picture (and point of my post) that those numbers are a reflection in one way or another of ALL variants of ESO. Steam is a window into the bigger picture here. In the end, it's all the same game and same playerbase regardless. To say or think otherwise is where the moot point stands imho.

Tandor

scorpius2k1 wrote: »

where has it been said and understood that Standalone, Steam, and Console are equally split percentages of the playerbase? Was it ZoS that stated this or another player theory? Genuinely interested.

Those aren't the three platforms. The three platforms are PC/Mac, XBox and PS4. ZOS announced a while ago that the three platform populations were roughly equal. Steam and Standalone players, as you call them, are playing on the same platform which is why those who purchased through Steam are able to play through the Standalone launcher - which many do.

scorpius2k1

Tandor wrote: »

Steam and Standalone players, as you call them, are playing on the same platform which is why those who purchased through Steam are able to play through the Standalone launcher - which many do

What would you call launcher based players? They are running standalone clients are they not? As far as I am aware, you cannot login via the official launcher if you purchased through Steam unless you purchase another official (standalone) key and then tie it to Steam afterward, essentially giving you "dual" login capability through steam/standalone. When you purchase a game through Steam, it restricts logins outside of it because you are agreeing to a contractual obligation with Valve to use their client. One user even made a post about how to purchase access to the regular launcher (for Steam users) . Maybe I am misunderstanding something here, or has this changed since December 2018? Is there info posted somewhere on how to login via the official launcher if you originally purchased through Steam without a workaround? If so, please share, I am sure many would appreciate it.

Tandor wrote: »

ZOS announced a while ago that the three platform populations were roughly equal.

Link or source would be appreciated.

At any rate back on the topic of the OP, I hope we can agree to disagree here or maybe at least have some fundamental understanding that regardless of PC/Mac (Steam or Standalone), XBox and PS4, every number counts. We are all in this together, one way or another. Hopefully with Q4 and 2020 updates, things will trend in a more +positive+ direction all around.

Tandor

scorpius2k1 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Steam and Standalone players, as you call them, are playing on the same platform which is why those who purchased through Steam are able to play through the Standalone launcher - which many do

What would you call launcher based players? They are running standalone clients are they not? As far as I am aware, you cannot login via the official launcher if you purchased through Steam unless you purchase another official (standalone) key and then tie it to Steam afterward, essentially giving you "dual" login capability through steam/standalone. When you purchase a game through Steam, it restricts logins outside of it because you are agreeing to a contractual obligation with Valve to use their client. One user even made a post about how to purchase access to the regular launcher (for Steam users) . Maybe I am misunderstanding something here, or has this changed since December 2018? Is there info posted somewhere on how to login via the official launcher if you originally purchased through Steam without a workaround? If so, please share, I am sure many would appreciate it.

Tandor wrote: »

ZOS announced a while ago that the three platform populations were roughly equal.

Link or source would be appreciated.

At any rate back on the topic of the OP, I hope we can agree to disagree here or maybe at least have some fundamental understanding that regardless of PC/Mac (Steam or Standalone), XBox and PS4, every number counts. We are all in this together, one way or another. Hopefully with Q4 and 2020 updates, things will trend in a more +positive+ direction all around.

I wasn't disagreeing with your use of the term Standalone Players, just confirming that I was describing non-Steam players using your term - not unreasonably given the confusion over what was meant by platforms.

The issue of workarounds for Steam players has been discussed in a number of threads. Workarounds are only needed if you registered the game account on Steam after a cut-off date which from memory was either December 2015 or sometime in 2016. If you registered it prior to that then you can launch the game through the standalone launcher. Hence all the earlier Steam players don't show up on the Steam login figures (along with those later ones who use a workaround).

The announcement of platform shares was made, if I remember rightly, in an ESO Live. I don't therefore have a link, but I think you'll find it's common knowledge.

As for whether we agree or disagree, and the significance of the figures etc, the only reason we're having this exchange is because I disputed, and still dispute, your assertion that Steam players represent 25% of the total playerbase - they do not. Hopefully that has now been clarified.

Jeremy

Lulls in game activity happen - especially during times of tumultuous change. So this was predictable.

If they can nail down and stabilize the balance and performance changes the population will recover and grow. So I wouldn't worry so much about it. Sometimes things have to get a little worse before they get better. Not to mention there isn't a whole lot of alternatives out there currently.

furiouslog

This thread annoyed me enough that I actually pulled the steam charts datra for myself, and ran a time series regression controlling for major content launch dates and free to play time periods. This lull is entirely seasonal in nature, and it is also prone to be more dynamic because of the increased population. The pattern in the data is that there is always a lull after the summer, and there is always a lull after a launch.

Note: this model is not perfect, I am unsure of some of my launch dates, and there is a big contribution from the move to the One Tamriel model, which had a big effect on Steam numbers and is difficult to control for. As I recall, there was a big promotional push on Steam at that time. Anyway, the actual monthly averages are in blue, the derived model that accounts for seasonal and content launch factors is in red. So can we stop this nonsense now? This so called "decline" is obviously part of a seasonal pattern, and it's prone to great variability anyway.

For the nerds in the audience, this is not a forecast, this is modeling the data. I did a forecast by trimming the data to Dec 2018 and it was actually pretty good, just a bit more bumpy.

https://ibb.co/rynhG2M

Jaraal

Lord_Eomer wrote: »

Source: https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

And the decline continues.

Raideen

Ardaghion wrote: »

I did a comparison of the 1 year Steam chart for ESO vs. BDO, quite enlightening.

idk wrote: »

Glad you found it enlightening. It is pretty much irrelevant it does not say much

^ will be preaching the same song and dance 1 minute before the lights go out.

dcam86b14_ESO

Again who is playing on steam in 2019?

Jaraal

dcam86b14_ESO wrote: »

Again who is playing on steam in 2019?

Apparently less people.

Elsonso

Jaraal wrote: »

Lord_Eomer wrote: »

Source: https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

And the decline continues.

Wake me up when we hit the November 2017 numbers.

Ardaghion

Raideen wrote: »

Ardaghion wrote: »

I did a comparison of the 1 year Steam chart for ESO vs. BDO, quite enlightening.

idk wrote: »

Glad you found it enlightening. It is pretty much irrelevant it does not say much

^ will be preaching the same song and dance 1 minute before the lights go out.

Well, it was my fault for not providing enough context or at least an image of the comparison graph. I thought it was pretty easy to generate the graph and didn't consider that other people wouldn't look at it, thereby making assumptions about that I was leaning towards.

From what idk said in response to my statement, I'm pretty sure they felt that I was pro-BDO and anti-ESO, to put it simply. The first time I heard of BDO it was on Xbox, I looked at the trailers and read a bit about the game. The characters all look pretty in that shiny Asian Final Fantasy vein but nothing about the game made me think I wanted to get involved with it.

You see people bring up Steam charts as proof of something and sometimes they also try to act as if BDO is this great game that people should leave ESO for. The chart I was describing showed that the number of people playing BDO on Steam were pretty much on par with the number of people playing on ESO during the same time frame, except for a brief period where BDO numbers spiked for a short time. If I remember the dates correctly the Steam spike appeared to coincide with the Xbox pre-release announcement, so probably some correlation there.

Goregrinder

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Wait, there are people who actually use Steam to play ESO?

Well according to these numbers, not anymore. They jumped to the normal client probably.

Kingslayer513

There's so much misinformation in this thread

First things first, yes obviously steam is a subset (of a subset) of the playerbase. But it is still a representative sample and very good at showing player trends, barring any steam specific login issues. It is certainly not irrelevant data.

Now as for the trends. Year after year, we see peak eso activity in the summer and with chapter releases, which usually fall within the same quarter. In the months after summer, there is always a seasonal decline in activity.

However for this year, we are currently seeing the longest continuous decline in player activity since the very early days of the game. And this trend doesn't show any signs of slowing down. So it's up to the next dlc to turn things around, and honestly I'm not holding my breath since next dlc is arguably the smallest and least feature-rich dlc eso has ever had. We'll see, I guess.

ghastley

All I see is that people are leaving Steam, not ESO. If I could do that for Skyrim, I would do so.

Hallothiel

On a purely anecdotal note, my main guild on PS4 EU has had quite a few new playing members joining recently, as well as players returning to the game.
Maybe it is just Steam?

Waseem

if those charts do not count the people who log for less than 1 hour each month, it'll be MUCH less

ATomiX69

Dude every game loses population until new content comes out, then it spikes up and slowly decays again until new content releases its pretty normal IMO.

Sylvermynx

ghastley wrote: »

All I see is that people are leaving Steam, not ESO. If I could do that for Skyrim, I would do so.

ME TOO, @ghastley !

Lord_Eomer

Population is continuous in negative and even have further declined in September and October.

What you have is only Steam figures as ZOS will never disclose non steam statistics.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Its better for ZOS to open eyes today and look into root cause.

ParaNostram

Every patch there is a "doom gloom the nerfs will kill the game!" every patch following 1.6 it's been the same song and dance.

ESO is still here. It's a broken buggy mess but it's still here.

Maotti

I have bought the biggest crown pack once a month for the past months, but not this month though! I won't be giving ZoS one more penny until they get their act together.

Elsonso

Lord_Eomer wrote: »

Population is continuous in negative and even have further declined in September and October.

What you have is only Steam figures as ZOS will never disclose non steam statistics.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Its better for ZOS to open eyes today and look into root cause.

I think I can assert that ZOS is watching population numbers a lot more closely than the players are.

ShellaSunshine

Steam charts only counts the players in ESO from the Steam client. It doesn't count all of the players who bought the game from the official website and has a separate launcher.

I had this game on Steam and it didn't work so I got a refund and bought it from the official ESO website. While Steam charts is a useful tool, it doesn't count ALL of the players, just the ones playing ESO from the Steam client.

Yuffie91

Goregrinder wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Wait, there are people who actually use Steam to play ESO?

Well according to these numbers, not anymore. They jumped to the normal client probably.

I still play through Steam

Jaraal

lordrichter wrote: »

Lord_Eomer wrote: »

Population is continuous in negative and even have further declined in September and October.

What you have is only Steam figures as ZOS will never disclose non steam statistics.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Its better for ZOS to open eyes today and look into root cause.

I think I can assert that ZOS is watching population numbers a lot more closely than the players are.

You sure couldn't tell by the repugnant combat and lore changes, nor the bugs and performance issues. Seems like they were watching the band play instead of looking for the iceberg ahead.

gepe87

We don't need chart numbers, even an empyrical analysis is enough:

-Massive pve guild shutdown;
- Guild fees increase;
- Guild itens sells increases prices (gold upgrade price, as main indicator)
- Small/local guild with less players (country/city based city guilds - checked this with 30 friends from different locations)
- Hard to get pug trials, even the craglorn ones (although meta change drive ppl to go SS, but still hard to form a group).
- Less players at alik 's dolmens (i check this regularly, but still have many players).
- Less players in vulkel, davon and daggerfall (same as above).
- Increased time queing to randoms (still fast to tank)
- PVP population remain +- the same (same players afterall). Under50 still too low (although faction lock may affect numbers).

PC-EU
Maybe I will do a more detailed/statistical comparison with values from 2018.

Humanophage

It's a pity that ZOS won't publicise population and you have to resort to secondary sources like Steam. I am not sure accounts of 'roughly equal' servers are genuine, seems more like something you'd say to avoid comparisons. It seems that the PC NA server is about 1.5-2 times as small as the EU server, judging by TTC listings (e.g., Dreugh Wax: 504 listings vs 280, etc.) I imagine the EU console servers to be slightly deadish because, say, Xbox One is not at all popular in much of the region. For instance, Google Trends searches for "Steam"/"Xbox One" are 26%/74% in the US, but 42%/58% in Sweden and a whopping 19%/81% in Russia.

That said, as a returning player who started this summer, I did not consider using the Steam version because it is famously buggy. I ordinarily use Steam for single-player games when I feel like rewarding the developer with some money, but here it seems like a possible source of headaches.

furiouslog

Lord_Eomer wrote: »

Population is continuous in negative and even have further declined in September and October.

What you have is only Steam figures as ZOS will never disclose non steam statistics.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Its better for ZOS to open eyes today and look into root cause.

Already done, if you took the time to read your own thread. (post 278)

https://ibb.co/rynhG2M