Ah you're using the numbers in the table for your monthly average and then using the numbers from the the chart tooltip for your current value? Doesnt work, since the numbers in the chart are not the same as the numbers in the tooltip for the same period.
No. I am only using the numbers listed as the monthly average.
The average number of players for October, 2013 was 1,646. Nov, 2013 was 2,029, etc. I add up the preceding 12 months averages to give me a 12 month average. So over the course of the preceding 12 months the average players of STO on steam 1,854. That includes a high month of 2,307 and a low month of 1,401.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I think if you were going to try to use samples to determine what the playerbase is doing you would need samples from each of the ways people access the game. These groups could behave differently. I don't know that they do, but they could.
See as I see it there is no reason at all for anyone to act differently just based on the launcher, so I consider that route void.
No one knows the number on who's playing by other means, old launcher, ARC. Steam may very well be the majority but without knowing the numbers you can't say for certain that steam is an accurate assessment of the playerbase as a whole. It's an assumption at best until proven to be true.
Okay that's a better argument. And sure that makes sense, though let me put this in the ring; What are the odds that so many thousands of players actually have the exact same habits? Common sense says they just won't, and I think what we might not be on the same lines for here is that I'm looking at the trends, I'm just quoting the numbers as a measure of accuracy, which I am confident in as being enough to justify that trend being accurate.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
As a few pointed out the STO Steam chart is great to view as a trending tool. No, it will not provide actual login numbers because we can only see Steam side of things, but it does show a decline sense DR has been released. Same as it did with LOR.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
I feel like I've written about these charts ad-infinitum. What I also feel like I've done is countered impressions by both sides of the argument over and over again.
First, if you think that looking at the "average" only and saying that it shows how wondrous everything is, you're wrong.
Second, if you think that looking at the "peak" only and saying that it shows everything's disastrous, you're also wrong.
Third, if you think that it's only from Steam and therefore can be ignored because it's not a full count of every single player, you're also wrong.
Here's the deal: all statistical information (including almost every Government statistic you will ever see) is based on a subset (known as a sample) of a population. The only figures not based on a sample are the Census, and even then, Governments merely presume people aren't lying, which is why in an Australian census one year when too many respondents added "Jedi" as their "Other religion" it caused such a stir. Conversely, medical research, educational research, labour research: subsets of data. The Steam subset is a sample and is perfectly legitimate in that role. It is known as a "Convenience sample" rather than a "Random sample" but it's not bad, as it represents a cross-section of players. It would be more problematic if it were say, only players from a single geographic location or from a single group such as "Males aged 25-34 in mid-income bracket". Even then though it could be useful within those parameters (known as "limitations"). So the argument that it's not legitimate based on being a sample merely shows the lack of knowledge of statistics of those who use it. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is.
As a subset, the Steam data is not a "Count" but a "Sample". That number of "X players" is not "X players playing STO", but "X players playing STO via Steam". It is the raw number, the sample size at the time. Within that context, it is useful as a starting figure.
This is a fancy way of saying: the sample size is useful when indexed and used to find comparisons between similar time periods.
Now on peaks and averages: both are useful, for different reasons. The "average" as an index could be used to mean, for example, that "There were +23% more approximate hours playing STO in month X compared to its previous month Y". What you cannot say from the data is that there were 23% more people playing STO, or that there was a static group playing 23% more hours. All we know are "player hours" in a sense from that.
In terms of the peaks and troughs, these are also useful. They show the peak and trough of player use on a daily rotation on the short- to mid-term (2 days to 1 month). After that time, Steam stats consolidate to the 'average' which is (sort of) the midpoint. However, it can be useful to compare like-with-like to see patterns or trends, for example, "10am Monday four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, one week ago". Again, it's not a count but a population size so it only shows a pattern and to understand the pattern requires getting out the calculator and indexing it (e.g. if 4 weeks ago is "100" on a percentile, then what is it 1 week ago?).
In terms of longer-term, it is useful in terms of checking previous cycles and assessing questions such as "is the current cycle showing similar numbers to LoR? What are its comparisons in terms of DR peak as a % of LoR peak? What is DR's October launch month average compared to LoR's launch month average as a %?" If you're not doing this work, then your finger-in-the-breeze "gee they look similar to me" isn't really worth much.
Finally, in terms of "Did DR do well?" at the moment, we don't really have the final picture. We already know peak wasn't as high as LoR, we know that it was higher than Summar/Winter events. We can see an odd steep dropoff, but we also don't know if current work by Cryptic will reverse that. As the Steam stats will take November peaks and averages and put that number next to October, it may, or may not, lead to a smoother elongated tail like we see in LoR. I've said before we won't see a final result until January. That still holds.
If you're going to argue about statistics, please at least do some work in understanding what the statistics are telling you, and stop posting the same lame old errors!
I feel like I've written about these charts ad-infinitum. What I also feel like I've done is countered impressions by both sides of the argument over and over again.
First, if you think that looking at the "average" only and saying that it shows how wondrous everything is, you're wrong.
Second, if you think that looking at the "peak" only and saying that it shows everything's disastrous, you're also wrong.
Third, if you think that it's only from Steam and therefore can be ignored because it's not a full count of every single player, you're also wrong.
Here's the deal: all statistical information (including almost every Government statistic you will ever see) is based on a subset (known as a sample) of a population. The only figures not based on a sample are the Census, and even then, Governments merely presume people aren't lying, which is why in an Australian census one year when too many respondents added "Jedi" as their "Other religion" it caused such a stir. Conversely, medical research, educational research, labour research: subsets of data. The Steam subset is a sample and is perfectly legitimate in that role. It is known as a "Convenience sample" rather than a "Random sample" but it's not bad, as it represents a cross-section of players. It would be more problematic if it were say, only players from a single geographic location or from a single group such as "Males aged 25-34 in mid-income bracket". Even then though it could be useful within those parameters (known as "limitations"). So the argument that it's not legitimate based on being a sample merely shows the lack of knowledge of statistics of those who use it. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is.
As a subset, the Steam data is not a "Count" but a "Sample". That number of "X players" is not "X players playing STO", but "X players playing STO via Steam". It is the raw number, the sample size at the time. Within that context, it is useful as a starting figure.
This is a fancy way of saying: the sample size is useful when indexed and used to find comparisons between similar time periods.
Now on peaks and averages: both are useful, for different reasons. The "average" as an index could be used to mean, for example, that "There were +23% more approximate hours playing STO in month X compared to its previous month Y". What you cannot say from the data is that there were 23% more people playing STO, or that there was a static group playing 23% more hours. All we know are "player hours" in a sense from that.
In terms of the peaks and troughs, these are also useful. They show the peak and trough of player use on a daily rotation on the short- to mid-term (2 days to 1 month). After that time, Steam stats consolidate to the 'average' which is (sort of) the midpoint. However, it can be useful to compare like-with-like to see patterns or trends, for example, "10am Monday four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, one week ago". Again, it's not a count but a population size so it only shows a pattern and to understand the pattern requires getting out the calculator and indexing it (e.g. if 4 weeks ago is "100" on a percentile, then what is it 1 week ago?).
In terms of longer-term, it is useful in terms of checking previous cycles and assessing questions such as "is the current cycle showing similar numbers to LoR? What are its comparisons in terms of DR peak as a % of LoR peak? What is DR's October launch month average compared to LoR's launch month average as a %?" If you're not doing this work, then your finger-in-the-breeze "gee they look similar to me" isn't really worth much.
Finally, in terms of "Did DR do well?" at the moment, we don't really have the final picture. We already know peak wasn't as high as LoR, we know that it was higher than Summar/Winter events. We can see an odd steep dropoff, but we also don't know if current work by Cryptic will reverse that. As the Steam stats will take November peaks and averages and put that number next to October, it may, or may not, lead to a smoother elongated tail like we see in LoR. I've said before we won't see a final result until January. That still holds.
If you're going to argue about statistics, please at least do some work in understanding what the statistics are telling you, and stop posting the same lame old errors!
Thanks for posting this, that was what I was trying to get at but wasn't doing a very good job :rolleyes:
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Most people I know use arc, or nothing, barely anyone that I know uses steam anymore, simply because they get free stuff with arc. Even alot of them only use arc to get the free items.
Alot of people on older/weaker computers cannot run steam or arc at the same time as sto without crashing. Personally I've played for 3 years, been using arc since it came out, ingame I show as playing for about 120 days total, on arc I show as about 20 days, when I used to use steam I showed as 0 days as it only shows when the person was running both steam/arc and sto at the same time, if you have steam/arc but log in direct to the game, they don't log you as being on sto.
Alot of people don't want 3rd party software so don't use anything but sto.
Wouldn't most new players since arc launched come to the game with/through arc anyway?
Steam charts are an insight into 1 thing, how many people using steam are running steam whilst playing sto, it could be used as an indicator if we had some idea of the % of players that use steam whilst playing against all other ways of playing, without that it is irrelevant as a way of judging overall as it could just be that trends in steam players do not reflect the other ways of playing.
Finally, in terms of "Did DR do well?" at the moment, we don't really have the final picture.
The OP was not asking if DR did well. The OP was using Steam data in an attempt to show the game is faltering - indicating that it only had a few thousand players. Unfortunately the date he provide does not show a decrease in players, it showed a current increase over the average - which is to be expected based on DR's release - but a general non-change overall.
If we use Steam's data we see the game constantly running within a regular value based on its average. IE, the game usually runs around 1,850 players per month - some months more, some months less. And it has been running within that range for a considerable amount of time:
Oct 2013 to Sept 2014 STO averaged 1,854 players per day.
Oct 2012 to Sept 2013 STO averaged 1,833 players per day.
As far as Steam is concerned the game's average player numbers are essentially unchanged over the last two years.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Moral of the story: using data from a subset of the whole as a representation of the whole is very often not accurate.
Ah, you dont believe in this: N = R * f(p) * n(e) * f(l) * f(i) * f(c) * L :P
There are definitely strong unrelenting voices in the community pro & contra about this subject. Meanwhile i used my wits, experience, instinct, and observations to form a private opinion.
Disclaimer (seems very important these days): The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is yours to draw...
Most people I know use arc, or nothing, barely anyone that I know uses steam anymore, simply because they get free stuff with arc. Even alot of them only use arc to get the free items.
Alot of people on older/weaker computers cannot run steam or arc at the same time as sto without crashing. Personally I've played for 3 years, been using arc since it came out, ingame I show as playing for about 120 days total, on arc I show as about 20 days, when I used to use steam I showed as 0 days as it only shows when the person was running both steam/arc and sto at the same time, if you have steam/arc but log in direct to the game, they don't log you as being on sto.
Alot of people don't want 3rd party software so don't use anything but sto.
Wouldn't most new players since arc launched come to the game with/through arc anyway?
Steam charts are an insight into 1 thing, how many people using steam are running steam whilst playing sto, it could be used as an indicator if we had some idea of the % of players that use steam whilst playing against all other ways of playing, without that it is irrelevant as a way of judging overall as it could just be that trends in steam players do not reflect the other ways of playing.
These are arguments about why Steam sample is the size that it is
None of them explain the spike and decline in the past 30 days. If they were using Steam to download DR a few weeks ago, they are probably still using Steam to play the game today (or to play some other game in their Steam library instead) [modulo some imperceptible number].
The OP was not asking if DR did well. The OP was using Steam data in an attempt to show the game is faltering - indicating that it only had a few thousand players. Unfortunately the date he provide does not show a decrease in players, it showed a current increase over the average - which is to be expected based on DR's release - but a general non-change overall.
If we use Steam's data we see the game constantly running within a regular value based on its average. IE, the game usually runs around 1,850 players per month - some months more, some months less. And it has been running within that range for a considerable amount of time:
Oct 2013 to Sept 2014 STO averaged 1,854 players per day.
Oct 2012 to Sept 2013 STO averaged 1,833 players per day.
As far as Steam is concerned the game's player numbers are essentially unchanged over the last two years.
Yes, my post was a general thing - I saw the OP, and others and just went for it from there. Thanks for doing the work to calculate out averages, I think that's very useful information. As ARC started at some point, I think your figures suggest it's fair to say that there may, or may not be long-term growth but if so, it would appear to have happened through other (ie. non-Steam) avenues. This is of course another limitation with Steam that I forgot to mention earlier.
More generally, what I find interesting is that this suggests something similar to the Star Trek franchise generally: it seems to have a hardcore following which seems pretty static/stable in terms of long-term numbers, and that there's a "Sweet Spot" to be found in providing service to that group.
Finally, in terms of "Did DR do well?" at the moment, we don't really have the final picture. We already know peak wasn't as high as LoR, we know that it was higher than Summar/Winter events. We can see an odd steep dropoff, but we also don't know if current work by Cryptic will reverse that. As the Steam stats will take November peaks and averages and put that number next to October, it may, or may not, lead to a smoother elongated tail like we see in LoR. I've said before we won't see a final result until January. That still holds.
You did a good post, but if I may point this part out. The players that participated to make the peak for DR (and LoR) are probably for the most part "1 time" player. They are either new players, or old vets that came back just because they heard the hype and wanted to test the game.
If they left because they were disappointed, one way or another, they won't come back until the next hype. They don't follow the news, and have probably already uninstalled the game, and moved onto another one.
Also, I agree with thecosmic1, the game is not dying or anything. DR was not a success, and probably below the expectation (just look the numbers of popular event and giveaway since it was released), that's a certainty in my mind, no need to see any charts. But the game itself is fine.
Also, I agree with thecosmic1, the game is not dying or anything. DR was not a success, and probably below the expectation (just look the numbers of popular event and giveaway since it was released), that's a certainty in my mind, no need to see any charts. But the game itself is fine.
The game would be fine if they had not made huge capital investment in building DR. That money has to be repaid, and they arent going to do that very quickly with pre-release player count. I have no doubt it will be repaid eventually but they didnt tie up capital on the promise of eventually, they thought they would make it back and then some. Thats why DR was always make or break--if they cant attract investment afterwards going forward, they are basically maintenance from here out.
The game would be fine if they had not made huge capital investment in building DR. That money has to be repaid, and they arent going to do that very quickly with pre-release player count. I have no doubt it will be repaid eventually but they didnt tie up capital on the promise of eventually, they thought they would make it back and then some. Thats why DR was always make or break--if they cant attract investment afterwards going forward, they are basically maintenance from here out.
As I have posted before, Cryptic only needed to sell 8,000 Delta Packs to make $1 million above their norm for their quarter. By the time you factor in individual T6 ships sold, T5U Tokens sold, and Zen sold to Upgrade Equipment to Mk XIII/XIV you are looking at a lot of income. I have no doubt that DR has made them a lot of money - even if we did not like this Expansion or can understand how stupidly Cryptic decided to handle all these changes.
Plus DR will bring in long-term income due to players looking to eventually Upgrade their T5/U ships once more Specializations and more ship-types are added to the game. IE, the people who are saying they will not buy a T6 ship today will probably change their mind once a ship they like makes it into the rotation at some point down the road.
I have no doubt that DR is a windfall for them. The question is will they be able to fix things quickly enough to keep the fallout under control? Based on all the Dev posts over the last few days I think they will get it under control - plus I think they will offer something special for the Winter Event to pacify those who are slightly grumpy. Nothing will pacify the haters - as nothing has over the last 2 years.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I wouldn't fully go by steam. As players uses other forms to get access to the game. So those numbers are more likely higher.
Every time I get on, I see a lot of players in various places. That one planet, I barely could get close enough to click to start the map. Due to the pile of players at it.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Based on all the Dev posts over the last few days I think they will get it under control - plus I think they will offer something special for the Winter Event to pacify those who are slightly grumpy. Nothing will pacify the haters - as nothing has over the last 2 years.
I feel slightly grumpier since DR came about with all the nerfing...can I have a JHAS as a consolation prize for this winter event?
I don't like using any 3rd party whatever running in the background just to load a game. I have Steam I don't use it, I just use the launcher. Those numbers only work for the players using Steam, now it may serve as an indicator or a sample but like this forum it only consists of a percentage of the player base, not the whole.
Like many I'm tired of seeing somebody throwing up another Steam chart and crying "Oh Noes", if the game goes poof, it goes poof, if I get hit by a truck tomorrow it's just going to happen and sitting here worrying about it today is not going to change anything.
It's pretty obvious that something has happened that got the Dev's attention because we are getting way more communication now than we have been getting in a very long time, but I'm pretty sure whatever it was, it wasn't the bloody Steam Charts.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
to be clear, i didnt start doom thread. i just saw numbers, and stats. are stats., you can clearly see how worse DR is doing in retrospective to LoR. And by me, DR is much better expansion then LoR was. Two new sector blocks, new species, ships, story line, new pve's... but something dose not evidently add up.
it was more like, hey wake the f'up. i like the game to much.
I don't like using any 3rd party whatever running in the background just to load a game. I have Steam I don't use it, I just use the launcher. Those numbers only work for the players using Steam, now it may serve as an indicator or a sample but like this forum it only consists of a percentage of the player base, not the whole.
But that's not the point. Re-read (or read if you haven't) janus1975 post and it'll help you understand.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
to be clear, i didnt start doom thread. i just saw numbers, and stats. are stats., you can clearly see how worse DR is doing in retrospective to LoR. And by me, DR is much better expansion then LoR was. Two new sector blocks, new species, ships, story line, new pve's... but something dose not evidently add up.
it was more like, hey wake the f'up. i like the game to much.
peace and love, pace and love.
Ok, let us really look at these numbers your provided.
The average number of daily Steam players for May, 2013 - when LoR Launched - was 2,656.
The average number of daily players over the last 30 days with DR's Launch is 2,628.
The average daily players are virtually identical.
The peak number does not matter because for every peak there is a valley which leads to a daily average. LoR's peak was 7,400, but its valleys were so low that its average ended up being 2,656 daily players. That last 30 day's peak was only 5,400 but its valleys were not as low and so you have an average of 2,628 daily players. IE, DR has had less low-player days then LoR had in its outing.
By every measure in the Steam data the two Expansions are giving virtually identical daily player numbers at this point. I would not be surprised to see that November's final numbers will probably be very close to June, 2013's numbers as well.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
But that's not the point. Re-read (or read if you haven't) janus1975 post and it'll help you understand.
No I understand and perhaps my remarks were too harsh, the Steam charts are a representative indication and I can understand whats going on.
DR was nowhere near as popular as LoR but either way it always reaches a stabilization point after a release where people who just came for the novelty leave and things go back to normal, STO will have diehard fans no matter what happens and new people are always going to be drawn to the Star Trek name, so even with a high turnover rate I don't see the game being in any real trouble for some time.
That said, when you look at the game now and think "Do I have time for this? or "Do I feel like going through all of that?" instead of "This is fun, what's next?", it's not much of mystery if something seems to be off and something must have happened that we are seeing such a, what seems to me, dramatic change in the amount of developer involvement we are getting lately. Whatever caused it I don't know, but it was clearly something that PWE couldn't ignore.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
I just bought a lifetime sub, and I don't use steam for STO
I expect the majority don't, and I expect people continue to migrate to ARC from Steam for convenience
I think everything you said is nonsense.
Steam users generally abhor the use of any other software program that attempts to do what Steam already does. We do not want more launchers, more overlays, etc.
I don't want ARC and I will quit if it is ever forced on me, and I'm LTS also.
As for everyone else, you can't write off the trend in the chart just because these are Steam users. There is nothing special or unique about Steam users compared to other users. The sample size is large enough to be representative and no attempt to pretend otherwise will change that.
Put another way, it is what it is. Am I freaking out? No. Does it concern me? Not really. Why? Because this is standard operating procedure for Cryptic.
to be clear, i didnt start doom thread. i just saw numbers, and stats. are stats., you can clearly see how worse DR is doing in retrospective to LoR. And by me, DR is much better expansion then LoR was. Two new sector blocks, new species, ships, story line, new pve's... but something dose not evidently add up.
it was more like, hey wake the f'up. i like the game to much.
peace and love, pace and love.
LOR spiked because it was introducing playable Romulans, which has been asked for since STO released. The Romulans are the 3rd of the original, major power players of Star Trek: The Federation, the Klingons, and last introduced, the Romulans, and all have played major, recurring parts in the franchise.
The chance to fly Warbirds, play Romulans, etc, was a large draw. That's why LOR got the numbers that it did.
Also, using info about only a single portion of the playerbase does not represent the whole of the STO playerbase. That info is just for Steam users. We have nothing out there that shows trends with all portions of STO users: Steam, ARC, regular launcher, etc. Only Cryptic / PWE has that info.
Put another way, it is what it is. Am I freaking out? No. Does it concern me? Not really. Why? Because this is standard operating procedure for Cryptic.
Feel the same way. I'm sure the curve will come down even more, but I don't think it's a big concern at all.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Steam charts are only good for showing trends. It shows nothing about how many players are on for the day or for how long those players were on for that day. The numbers just show the maximum number of people that were on for that day or the number of people that were on for those 15 minutes.
Comments
The average number of players for October, 2013 was 1,646. Nov, 2013 was 2,029, etc. I add up the preceding 12 months averages to give me a 12 month average. So over the course of the preceding 12 months the average players of STO on steam 1,854. That includes a high month of 2,307 and a low month of 1,401.
See as I see it there is no reason at all for anyone to act differently just based on the launcher, so I consider that route void.
Okay that's a better argument. And sure that makes sense, though let me put this in the ring; What are the odds that so many thousands of players actually have the exact same habits? Common sense says they just won't, and I think what we might not be on the same lines for here is that I'm looking at the trends, I'm just quoting the numbers as a measure of accuracy, which I am confident in as being enough to justify that trend being accurate.
First, if you think that looking at the "average" only and saying that it shows how wondrous everything is, you're wrong.
Second, if you think that looking at the "peak" only and saying that it shows everything's disastrous, you're also wrong.
Third, if you think that it's only from Steam and therefore can be ignored because it's not a full count of every single player, you're also wrong.
Here's the deal: all statistical information (including almost every Government statistic you will ever see) is based on a subset (known as a sample) of a population. The only figures not based on a sample are the Census, and even then, Governments merely presume people aren't lying, which is why in an Australian census one year when too many respondents added "Jedi" as their "Other religion" it caused such a stir. Conversely, medical research, educational research, labour research: subsets of data. The Steam subset is a sample and is perfectly legitimate in that role. It is known as a "Convenience sample" rather than a "Random sample" but it's not bad, as it represents a cross-section of players. It would be more problematic if it were say, only players from a single geographic location or from a single group such as "Males aged 25-34 in mid-income bracket". Even then though it could be useful within those parameters (known as "limitations"). So the argument that it's not legitimate based on being a sample merely shows the lack of knowledge of statistics of those who use it. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is.
As a subset, the Steam data is not a "Count" but a "Sample". That number of "X players" is not "X players playing STO", but "X players playing STO via Steam". It is the raw number, the sample size at the time. Within that context, it is useful as a starting figure.
This is a fancy way of saying: the sample size is useful when indexed and used to find comparisons between similar time periods.
Now on peaks and averages: both are useful, for different reasons. The "average" as an index could be used to mean, for example, that "There were +23% more approximate hours playing STO in month X compared to its previous month Y". What you cannot say from the data is that there were 23% more people playing STO, or that there was a static group playing 23% more hours. All we know are "player hours" in a sense from that.
In terms of the peaks and troughs, these are also useful. They show the peak and trough of player use on a daily rotation on the short- to mid-term (2 days to 1 month). After that time, Steam stats consolidate to the 'average' which is (sort of) the midpoint. However, it can be useful to compare like-with-like to see patterns or trends, for example, "10am Monday four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, one week ago". Again, it's not a count but a population size so it only shows a pattern and to understand the pattern requires getting out the calculator and indexing it (e.g. if 4 weeks ago is "100" on a percentile, then what is it 1 week ago?).
In terms of longer-term, it is useful in terms of checking previous cycles and assessing questions such as "is the current cycle showing similar numbers to LoR? What are its comparisons in terms of DR peak as a % of LoR peak? What is DR's October launch month average compared to LoR's launch month average as a %?" If you're not doing this work, then your finger-in-the-breeze "gee they look similar to me" isn't really worth much.
Finally, in terms of "Did DR do well?" at the moment, we don't really have the final picture. We already know peak wasn't as high as LoR, we know that it was higher than Summar/Winter events. We can see an odd steep dropoff, but we also don't know if current work by Cryptic will reverse that. As the Steam stats will take November peaks and averages and put that number next to October, it may, or may not, lead to a smoother elongated tail like we see in LoR. I've said before we won't see a final result until January. That still holds.
If you're going to argue about statistics, please at least do some work in understanding what the statistics are telling you, and stop posting the same lame old errors!
Thanks for posting this, that was what I was trying to get at but wasn't doing a very good job :rolleyes:
Basicly this. I'm happy someone else explain it rather than me.
Agreed, that was an excellent post.
Alot of people on older/weaker computers cannot run steam or arc at the same time as sto without crashing. Personally I've played for 3 years, been using arc since it came out, ingame I show as playing for about 120 days total, on arc I show as about 20 days, when I used to use steam I showed as 0 days as it only shows when the person was running both steam/arc and sto at the same time, if you have steam/arc but log in direct to the game, they don't log you as being on sto.
Alot of people don't want 3rd party software so don't use anything but sto.
Wouldn't most new players since arc launched come to the game with/through arc anyway?
Steam charts are an insight into 1 thing, how many people using steam are running steam whilst playing sto, it could be used as an indicator if we had some idea of the % of players that use steam whilst playing against all other ways of playing, without that it is irrelevant as a way of judging overall as it could just be that trends in steam players do not reflect the other ways of playing.
If we use Steam's data we see the game constantly running within a regular value based on its average. IE, the game usually runs around 1,850 players per month - some months more, some months less. And it has been running within that range for a considerable amount of time:
Oct 2013 to Sept 2014 STO averaged 1,854 players per day.
Oct 2012 to Sept 2013 STO averaged 1,833 players per day.
As far as Steam is concerned the game's average player numbers are essentially unchanged over the last two years.
There are definitely strong unrelenting voices in the community pro & contra about this subject. Meanwhile i used my wits, experience, instinct, and observations to form a private opinion.
Disclaimer (seems very important these days): The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is yours to draw...
None of them explain the spike and decline in the past 30 days. If they were using Steam to download DR a few weeks ago, they are probably still using Steam to play the game today (or to play some other game in their Steam library instead) [modulo some imperceptible number].
Yes, my post was a general thing - I saw the OP, and others and just went for it from there. Thanks for doing the work to calculate out averages, I think that's very useful information. As ARC started at some point, I think your figures suggest it's fair to say that there may, or may not be long-term growth but if so, it would appear to have happened through other (ie. non-Steam) avenues. This is of course another limitation with Steam that I forgot to mention earlier.
More generally, what I find interesting is that this suggests something similar to the Star Trek franchise generally: it seems to have a hardcore following which seems pretty static/stable in terms of long-term numbers, and that there's a "Sweet Spot" to be found in providing service to that group.
If they left because they were disappointed, one way or another, they won't come back until the next hype. They don't follow the news, and have probably already uninstalled the game, and moved onto another one.
Also, I agree with thecosmic1, the game is not dying or anything. DR was not a success, and probably below the expectation (just look the numbers of popular event and giveaway since it was released), that's a certainty in my mind, no need to see any charts. But the game itself is fine.
The game would be fine if they had not made huge capital investment in building DR. That money has to be repaid, and they arent going to do that very quickly with pre-release player count. I have no doubt it will be repaid eventually but they didnt tie up capital on the promise of eventually, they thought they would make it back and then some. Thats why DR was always make or break--if they cant attract investment afterwards going forward, they are basically maintenance from here out.
Plus DR will bring in long-term income due to players looking to eventually Upgrade their T5/U ships once more Specializations and more ship-types are added to the game. IE, the people who are saying they will not buy a T6 ship today will probably change their mind once a ship they like makes it into the rotation at some point down the road.
I have no doubt that DR is a windfall for them. The question is will they be able to fix things quickly enough to keep the fallout under control? Based on all the Dev posts over the last few days I think they will get it under control - plus I think they will offer something special for the Winter Event to pacify those who are slightly grumpy. Nothing will pacify the haters - as nothing has over the last 2 years.
Every time I get on, I see a lot of players in various places. That one planet, I barely could get close enough to click to start the map. Due to the pile of players at it.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I feel slightly grumpier since DR came about with all the nerfing...can I have a JHAS as a consolation prize for this winter event?
Nooooooooo.
I want a Hirogen Apex or Jem Dread.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Like many I'm tired of seeing somebody throwing up another Steam chart and crying "Oh Noes", if the game goes poof, it goes poof, if I get hit by a truck tomorrow it's just going to happen and sitting here worrying about it today is not going to change anything.
It's pretty obvious that something has happened that got the Dev's attention because we are getting way more communication now than we have been getting in a very long time, but I'm pretty sure whatever it was, it wasn't the bloody Steam Charts.
it was more like, hey wake the f'up. i like the game to much.
peace and love, pace and love.
But that's not the point. Re-read (or read if you haven't) janus1975 post and it'll help you understand.
The average number of daily Steam players for May, 2013 - when LoR Launched - was 2,656.
The average number of daily players over the last 30 days with DR's Launch is 2,628.
The average daily players are virtually identical.
The peak number does not matter because for every peak there is a valley which leads to a daily average. LoR's peak was 7,400, but its valleys were so low that its average ended up being 2,656 daily players. That last 30 day's peak was only 5,400 but its valleys were not as low and so you have an average of 2,628 daily players. IE, DR has had less low-player days then LoR had in its outing.
By every measure in the Steam data the two Expansions are giving virtually identical daily player numbers at this point. I would not be surprised to see that November's final numbers will probably be very close to June, 2013's numbers as well.
DR was nowhere near as popular as LoR but either way it always reaches a stabilization point after a release where people who just came for the novelty leave and things go back to normal, STO will have diehard fans no matter what happens and new people are always going to be drawn to the Star Trek name, so even with a high turnover rate I don't see the game being in any real trouble for some time.
That said, when you look at the game now and think "Do I have time for this? or "Do I feel like going through all of that?" instead of "This is fun, what's next?", it's not much of mystery if something seems to be off and something must have happened that we are seeing such a, what seems to me, dramatic change in the amount of developer involvement we are getting lately. Whatever caused it I don't know, but it was clearly something that PWE couldn't ignore.
I think everything you said is nonsense.
Steam users generally abhor the use of any other software program that attempts to do what Steam already does. We do not want more launchers, more overlays, etc.
I don't want ARC and I will quit if it is ever forced on me, and I'm LTS also.
As for everyone else, you can't write off the trend in the chart just because these are Steam users. There is nothing special or unique about Steam users compared to other users. The sample size is large enough to be representative and no attempt to pretend otherwise will change that.
Put another way, it is what it is. Am I freaking out? No. Does it concern me? Not really. Why? Because this is standard operating procedure for Cryptic.
Firesworn Nation (@rswfire) - https://www.firesworn.com
LOR spiked because it was introducing playable Romulans, which has been asked for since STO released. The Romulans are the 3rd of the original, major power players of Star Trek: The Federation, the Klingons, and last introduced, the Romulans, and all have played major, recurring parts in the franchise.
The chance to fly Warbirds, play Romulans, etc, was a large draw. That's why LOR got the numbers that it did.
Also, using info about only a single portion of the playerbase does not represent the whole of the STO playerbase. That info is just for Steam users. We have nothing out there that shows trends with all portions of STO users: Steam, ARC, regular launcher, etc. Only Cryptic / PWE has that info.
Feel the same way. I'm sure the curve will come down even more, but I don't think it's a big concern at all.
I still have my STO CD, and till they patch it out, then I'm not using either Steam or Arc to play STO.
As for Wrestling...IT'S STILL REAL TO ME DAMNIT!! :P