Why would Steam playerbase count for overall success? IIRC most players do not go through Steam to play STO. I know I don't....... so, its missing a large data chunk.
Why would Steam playerbase count for overall success? IIRC most players do not go through Steam to play STO. I know I don't....... so, its missing a large data chunk.
No reason to believe that Steam numbers are off either. Steam is a huge service and the # of STO players in steam is probably a relatively good sample of the STO playerbase. This assumes no inherent bias given the numbers and normal distribution.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
No reason to believe that Steam numbers are off either. Steam is a huge service and the # of STO players in steam is probably a relatively good sample of the STO playerbase. This assumes no inherent bias given the numbers and normal distribution.
I'm aware..
This is more of a "Hey look" as opposed to how well the game really is doing IMO. I have Steam as well, I just didn't have Steam before I had STO.
There's also the question of how many people switching to Steam to avoid ARC?
I don't want ARC because I hate unneeded TRIBBLE running in the background. For me, Steam is as BAD as ARC in that regard, so I wouldn't EVER switch to it either. I'd just STOP playing STO and move on to find a game that doesn't require proprietary TRIBBLE running in the background. (YMMV)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
the number of steam users does not tell us much. you could reasonable assume that everyone else who does not use steam follow a similar pattern, but is that 10'000 people or 1 million. knowing a % of what the population does when we dont know what the overall population is, is not helpful.
the more important factor is who is paying for what? if those people that turn up for f2p and expansions but put in little to no money then its not a great loss when they turn up and leave if they are not putting any money in. i would expect quite a large number of people to tun up, burn through the new content in one week and leave for a year. they just have no interest in repeating it and no interest in buying anything.
using that data alone the only interesting thing is what the figure would be for the next expansion, but other than that i dont find this helpful at all.
the number of steam users does not tell us much. you could reasonable assume that everyone else who does not use steam follow a similar pattern, but is that 10'000 people or 1 million. knowing a % of what the population does when we dont know what the overall population is, is not helpful.
the more important factor is who is paying for what? if those people that turn up for f2p and expansions but put in little to no money then its not a great loss when they turn up and leave if they are not putting any money in. i would expect quite a large number of people to tun up, burn through the new content in one week and leave for a year. they just have no interest in repeating it and no interest in buying anything.
using that data alone the only interesting thing is what the figure would be for the next expansion, but other than that i dont find this helpful at all.
Its even better than typical (valid) marketing research since its global. Contrary to some popular belive Steam users are games too and it would surprise me greatly if a graph showing all STO players would look much different.
About paying players: We could argue all day about which one might buy what in what timeframe, but I do think we can bouth agree on that if somebody does not play at all he/she don't buy anything at all.
The longer somebody is entertained enough to be online and keep playing the higher the chance the he buys some stuff or gets somebody else exited about something to spend money on. No play - no pay.
So it is indeed in the best interest of Cryptic to take close look at what those ppl from the F2P & LOR Spike which do not play anymore have in common, what was their main activitys, their main complaints and get that right at the latest before the next X-Pack gets ready.
my judgment of the data is... the base line you see (2500 - 3000 players average) is the part of the playerbase that doesn't get annoyed enough by the bugs too leave over it and is happy enough with the daily grind to do it.
the spike above that with LoR represents .... too an unknown amount players that tested it and just didn't like it, but more so: players that want Story-Mission content over grind maps/zones, and it only falls down again once the new shiny content is consumed.
the good thing is, compared to other F2P MMOs on Steam of the same genre (strong licensed IP + F2P MMO), the overall numbers are all more or less same-ish.
i mean DCUO had a spike of 17000 players on its F2P launch and has averaged out near or below STO's numbers. LOTRO was near STOs numbers, then fell to half of it and just now got a little bump again...
Marvel Heroes' numbers seem a bit more spiky, but still seem to be steadily declining to an average that is also around STOs numbers...
sooo all in all... numbers are where one could expect them to be for this type of game.
Interesting argument. The lost potential in STO, over players who want to play but dislike the daily grind. I have to concur.
Looking how long the Spike lasted, that's long enough for players to level up their Romulans and complete the storylines. And it died around the Summer Event, with a brief spike, likely indicating the end of the event.
Also there is another thing that I see in this map. With the average of 3000 STO players on Steam, PW can use this to justify ARC being implemented and abandoning steam. Because it would be like our arguments with Klingons and PvP......why bother when the majority ....
I think the graphical rendering Steam gives us, is a good description on how things are. Disregard the numbers themselves, but humans are habitual creatures, so if a few thousand people through the Steam graph shows a pattern, this pattern can highly likely be used for the rest of the STO community. What can not be deduced from this, is cashflow numbers. Those numbers are based on a multitude of different things, not wether you log in or not.
Another thing to take into consideration, is if there is a global difference in popularity. Just to make an example... If none within the borders of china plays it... I'd bet you, the timezone difference will have an impact on numbers. Steam is good in this sense to see what the habits are. They do afterall base their statistics on hourly data.
Back to the marvel heroes forums with you Zero! Also, lolsteam.
Maybe its my naievette being that this is the first and only pure mmo I've ever played... but I run arc instead of steam for the simple fact that when I downloaded steam my computer went haywire and got noticeably slower. Ive had no such issue with arc. To the OP, here's at least one non steam sto player.
- STO was not doing well on Steam as a pay-to-play game .
(does this mean that Steam is a home for a large group of 'game hoppers' that don't actually like to pay 4 stuff ?)
- As a P2P game , STO had an average user base of less then 1000 players on Steam .
- After going F2P , off spike Steam numbers tend to be around 3000 .
- Free content updates + advertisement = player numbers on the short term .
The question in my mind is this :
Will a LoR like update using lesser known villains (Cardassians , Iconians) generate the same numbers as LoR ?
I'm asking based on the supposition that ppl REALLY wanted to play Romulans ... (see the number of Romulan ships still in use in sector space for more details) .
Well the data is interesting and I do think Steam's stats are probably a representative sample, but all it seems to really show is that 1) things attractive to large numbers of people attract large numbers of people and 2) retaining those people is hard.
Do other F2P MMOs have that same retention problem? I suspect they do. Does every MMO maker have a meeting room with a whiteboard covered in ideas to mitigate that? Probably.
- STO was not doing well on Steam as a pay-to-play game .
(does this mean that Steam is a home for a large group of 'game hoppers' that don't actually like to pay 4 stuff ?)
- As a P2P game , STO had an average user base of less then 1000 players on Steam .
- After going F2P , off spike Steam numbers tend to be around 3000 .
- Free content updates + advertisement = player numbers on the short term .
The question in my mind is this :
Will a LoR like update using lesser known villains (Cardassians , Iconians) generate the same numbers as LoR ?
I'm asking based on the supposition that ppl REALLY wanted to play Romulans ... (see the number of Romulan ships still in use in sector space for more details) .
Wile I'm really interested to see a cardassian faction I do think Cryptic has only one chance left with a "new faction x-pack" for using such a big spike to up their playerbase (without downsliding) and that would be with a Borg faction.
Lets just hope Cryptic does it right and without the "Don't look at what they say, look at what they do" mentality some companys seem to have (which I ironically heard of the first time regarding EvE when their company had to do a 180 turn in longterm business plans, had to fire devteams and probably lost millions because they ignored their playerbase).
Legacy of Romulus was a full-blown expansion -- it's hard to compare that to a Season. You're also missing the circles for Season 6 and Season 7. And, this is only Steam players
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
I have been telling people this for weeks. I would say it's amazing how many people have horse blinder ignorance but it is too damn common on the Internet.
Legacy of Romulus was a full-blown expansion -- it's hard to compare that to a Season. You're also missing the circles for Season 6 and Season 7. And, this is only Steam players
Assuming that the steam info translate into general player base (which is an assumption in and of itself). This graph tells me three things.
1. That when someone gives something away for free that they were charging for before, a lot of people show up.
2. When a massive amount of new content information is added a lot of people show up.
3. That outside of those times there is only a slow climb in playerbase.
The first two are obvious..... the third just shows that the "the Game is DOOMED! DOOOOOMED" people could be wrong and we have a graph that gives some indication of it (once again, assuming this represents overall player-base).
Assuming that the steam info translate into general player base (which is an assumption in and of itself). This graph tells me three things.
1. That when someone gives something away for free that they were charging for before, a lot of people show up.
2. When a massive amount of new content information is added a lot of people show up.
3. That outside of those times there is only a slow climb in playerbase.
The first two are obvious..... the third just shows that the "the Game is DOOMED! DOOOOOMED" people could be wrong and we have a graph that gives some indication of it (once again, assuming this represents overall player-base).
Considering the sampling numbers the players in the thousands, I'd be willing to say that the Steam graph is a fair generalization, but only that.
Considering the sampling numbers the players in the thousands, I'd be willing to say that the Steam graph is a fair generalization, but only that.
I imagine the real graph follows the same or at least a similar path, but with considerably more players. It's not hard to see that most STO players don't use Steam.
Comments
No reason to believe that Steam numbers are off either. Steam is a huge service and the # of STO players in steam is probably a relatively good sample of the STO playerbase. This assumes no inherent bias given the numbers and normal distribution.
- Judge Aaron Satie
I'm aware..
This is more of a "Hey look" as opposed to how well the game really is doing IMO. I have Steam as well, I just didn't have Steam before I had STO.
I don't want ARC because I hate unneeded TRIBBLE running in the background. For me, Steam is as BAD as ARC in that regard, so I wouldn't EVER switch to it either. I'd just STOP playing STO and move on to find a game that doesn't require proprietary TRIBBLE running in the background. (YMMV)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Why would you have had to ? If you already had STO installed you dont need to worry about either.
The only time I use steam or another equivalent is when I absolutely must have it in order to run a game.
the number of steam users does not tell us much. you could reasonable assume that everyone else who does not use steam follow a similar pattern, but is that 10'000 people or 1 million. knowing a % of what the population does when we dont know what the overall population is, is not helpful.
the more important factor is who is paying for what? if those people that turn up for f2p and expansions but put in little to no money then its not a great loss when they turn up and leave if they are not putting any money in. i would expect quite a large number of people to tun up, burn through the new content in one week and leave for a year. they just have no interest in repeating it and no interest in buying anything.
using that data alone the only interesting thing is what the figure would be for the next expansion, but other than that i dont find this helpful at all.
Its even better than typical (valid) marketing research since its global. Contrary to some popular belive Steam users are games too and it would surprise me greatly if a graph showing all STO players would look much different.
About paying players: We could argue all day about which one might buy what in what timeframe, but I do think we can bouth agree on that if somebody does not play at all he/she don't buy anything at all.
The longer somebody is entertained enough to be online and keep playing the higher the chance the he buys some stuff or gets somebody else exited about something to spend money on. No play - no pay.
So it is indeed in the best interest of Cryptic to take close look at what those ppl from the F2P & LOR Spike which do not play anymore have in common, what was their main activitys, their main complaints and get that right at the latest before the next X-Pack gets ready.
Interesting argument. The lost potential in STO, over players who want to play but dislike the daily grind. I have to concur.
Looking how long the Spike lasted, that's long enough for players to level up their Romulans and complete the storylines. And it died around the Summer Event, with a brief spike, likely indicating the end of the event.
Also there is another thing that I see in this map. With the average of 3000 STO players on Steam, PW can use this to justify ARC being implemented and abandoning steam. Because it would be like our arguments with Klingons and PvP......why bother when the majority ....
I really don't want ARC........
Another thing to take into consideration, is if there is a global difference in popularity. Just to make an example... If none within the borders of china plays it... I'd bet you, the timezone difference will have an impact on numbers. Steam is good in this sense to see what the habits are. They do afterall base their statistics on hourly data.
Maybe its my naievette being that this is the first and only pure mmo I've ever played... but I run arc instead of steam for the simple fact that when I downloaded steam my computer went haywire and got noticeably slower. Ive had no such issue with arc. To the OP, here's at least one non steam sto player.
agreed, the sample is too small.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
Why are you not rejoicing?
- STO was not doing well on Steam as a pay-to-play game .
(does this mean that Steam is a home for a large group of 'game hoppers' that don't actually like to pay 4 stuff ?)
- As a P2P game , STO had an average user base of less then 1000 players on Steam .
- After going F2P , off spike Steam numbers tend to be around 3000 .
- Free content updates + advertisement = player numbers on the short term .
The question in my mind is this :
Will a LoR like update using lesser known villains (Cardassians , Iconians) generate the same numbers as LoR ?
I'm asking based on the supposition that ppl REALLY wanted to play Romulans ... (see the number of Romulan ships still in use in sector space for more details) .
Me playing UT2k4 (red guy) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz0DnP7wXnU
I myself only started over the summer.
Do other F2P MMOs have that same retention problem? I suspect they do. Does every MMO maker have a meeting room with a whiteboard covered in ideas to mitigate that? Probably.
Wile I'm really interested to see a cardassian faction I do think Cryptic has only one chance left with a "new faction x-pack" for using such a big spike to up their playerbase (without downsliding) and that would be with a Borg faction.
Lets just hope Cryptic does it right and without the "Don't look at what they say, look at what they do" mentality some companys seem to have (which I ironically heard of the first time regarding EvE when their company had to do a 180 turn in longterm business plans, had to fire devteams and probably lost millions because they ignored their playerbase).
Yep. And basically OP succeeded in proving the exact opposite.
Troll moar harder, OP! [ROFLCOPTER]
I have been telling people this for weeks. I would say it's amazing how many people have horse blinder ignorance but it is too damn common on the Internet.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
The topic says "judge for yourself." It doesn't say anything else.
This. Exactly.
They just launched an expansion. That is probably the little bump. :P
1. That when someone gives something away for free that they were charging for before, a lot of people show up.
2. When a massive amount of new content information is added a lot of people show up.
3. That outside of those times there is only a slow climb in playerbase.
The first two are obvious..... the third just shows that the "the Game is DOOMED! DOOOOOMED" people could be wrong and we have a graph that gives some indication of it (once again, assuming this represents overall player-base).
Considering the sampling numbers the players in the thousands, I'd be willing to say that the Steam graph is a fair generalization, but only that.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Yes, it's definitely a take it with a grain of salt type thing.
I imagine the real graph follows the same or at least a similar path, but with considerably more players. It's not hard to see that most STO players don't use Steam.