2024 STEAM Concurrent Players(CCU) Official Watch Thread

[Anno]

It’s only very tengentially related but tomorrow is also the start of the next My Time game’s Kickstarter. Could be worth keeping an eye on vs. the first two.

Quick follow up: the new Kickstarter raised as much as their second game (~$525k) in just under 5 hours. Whatever issues some AA games may be having, this series seems to be doing quite well.

Also interesting tidbit that My Time at Sandrock has cost them about $12m in total per the Kickstarter page.

 

[Frost Ace]

Forgot to mention this...
Black Myth: Wukong peaked at 441,148 yesterday, first time the game peaked under 500k players.
Game is officially a bomba... /s

I got recommended a Youtube video that was like "Black Myth Wukong has lost 80% of its players, and we know why" and could only pray The Discourse™ hasn't gotten this dumb.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

I got recommended a Youtube video that was like "Black Myth Wukong has lost 80% of its players, and we know why" and could only pray The Discourse™ hasn't gotten this dumb.

Looking at the youtube channel in question, it only has a few thousand views per video on averaging. I'm sure making that video is about some algorithm ploy. Most comments are saying the very reasonable thing that it is a linear single player game with an end. Crisis averted really. But it is quite annoying that a lot of outlets and online people keep rehasing the steam CCU drop off talking point to get easy clicks, either from outrage or from people who like to dogpile on games.

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Time for some numbers!

Today's releases:

The Forever Winter current Day 1 CCU record(game launched a bit more than an hour ago) - 10,412
Game is currently #1 on the global top sellers.
Will have to wait to see when the first few waves of user reviews are going to drop to see if there's any glaring technical issues that may make this game a flash in the pan or if it will have sticking power.

Ara: History Untold Day 1 CCU record - 4,262
50% Steam rating with 98 reviews. A lot of negative reviews due to technical issues.
Yet again another strategy/4X game that comes out undercooked. Recently that genre and racing sims have been through the wringer, can't seem to have one release that just works out.

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Day 1 CCU record - 1,161
95% Steam rating with 40 reviews.

Bloomtown: A Different Story Day 1 CCU record - 696
95% Steam rating with 45 reviews. This is an indie JRPG.

Bloomtown: A Different Story is a narrative JRPG mixing turn-based combat, monster taming and social RPG set in a seemingly pleasant 1960s Americana world. Join Emily and her group of friends to save their cozy town from the demonic creatures that live in the hearts of its residents!

Greedfall II: A Dying World Day 1 CCU record - 375
40% Steam rating with 57 reviews.
Oof....


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Crusader Kings 3 daily CCU peak - 47,781
Highest CCU count since Feb 2022 with 63,229. This was due to a DLC drop + free weekend.
This newest DLC is being well received, CK3: Roads to Power has a 95% Steam rating with 258 reviews.

 

[Damage2]

Greedfall 2 bombing huh, i thought that WRPG series was popular.

 

[Godzilla]

First one CCU was around 16k, but i also felt it had way more marketing, this one kinda came and went? I don't know, i liked the first one a lot and was surprised this came out this week

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Greedfall 2 bombing huh, i thought that WRPG series was popular.

The first game sold 2M as of May 2022. So it probably is at something like 2.5M-3.5M~ at this point.
Pretty respectable for a small french team but nothing too crazy.
There was def some potential here with a more polished sequel, but alas...

First one CCU was around 16k, but i also felt it had way more marketing, this one kinda came and went? I don't know, i liked the first one a lot and was surprised this came out this week

Believe it or not, the game is actually an early access title.
Which is not really typical for RPGs that aren't from Larian.

Yeah, it's been a lot less marketing, probably because the development of the game is fucked.

In Prior Nacon published game news:

Employees of Spiders issue a statement denouncing Nacon's management and support the social movement at Kylotonn (which are on strike today) News

Statement issues from French workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo): https://www.stjv.fr/en/2023/07/demands-from-workers-at-spiders-and-support-for-the-social-movement-at-kylotonn/ The previous statement regarding Kylotonn can be found here (and the...

www.resetera.com

Open letter from Spiders' workers: High turnover, no transparency, high gender pay gap, troubled Greedfall II development. Strike early September. News

French workers Union STJV published a 20 pages open letter from Spiders' workers to their management and Nacon. I'll post the summary / tl;dr near the end, but it's fully translated in English if you want to know more...

www.resetera.com

Following Spiders, Kylotonn (WRC, Test Drive) goes on strike today, against "Nacon’s strategy of silence" News

Proviously on What the fuck is happening at Nacon: https://www.resetera.com/threads/open-letter-from-spiders-workers-high-turnover-no-transparency-high-gender-pay-gap-troubled-greedfall-ii-development-strike-early-september.964905/...

www.resetera.com

This is without going into "older history" like (they were called BigBen at the time) Nacon vs Frogwares with The Sinking City. This was a whole rights dispute that got nasty.

Now it's possible that Nacon just has bad luck and all the studio partners they pick to make games that are run very poorly or they're a big part of the problem. I dunno about you, but I think I'm going with option #2.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Greedfall 2 bombing huh, i thought that WRPG series was popular.

the gameplay is completely different. so that might have put off everyone

 

[Anno]

I feel like this is one of those Early Access titles that was all but doomed from the start unless it was just amazing. I don’t know that anyone but Larian can get away with an EA RPG, unfortunately, and especially not one that seems to be doing it because the developers need the money and have a bunch of negative press. I’m about as big of an EA supporter as there is and I’d be pretty hesitant to give them my money.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Monster Hunter Wilds specs are out. same specs as Dragon's Dogma 2. hold on to your buttcheeks yall

	Minimum	Recommended
Resolution	1080p (Upscaled)	1080p (FHD)
Frame Rate	30 fps	60 fps (with Frame Generation enabled)
OS	Windows® 10 (64-bit Required)	Windows® 10 (64-bit Required)
Processor	Intel Core i5-10600 Intel Core i3-12100F AMD Ryzen 5 3600	Intel Core i5-11600K Intel Core i5-12400 AMD Ryzen 5 3600X AMD Ryzen 5 5500
Memory	16GB	16GB
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 AMD Radeon RX 6700XT
VRAM	6GB	8GB
Storage	140GB SSD	140GB SSD
Note	SSD required. This game is expected to run at 1080p (upscaled from 720 native resolution)/30 fps under the "Lowest graphics setting. DirectStorage supported.	SSD required. This game is expected to run at 1080p/60 fps (with Frame Generation. enabled) under the "Medium" graphics setting. DirectStorage supported.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

The Forever Winter current Day 1 CCU record(game launched a bit more than an hour ago) - 10,412
Game is currently #1 on the global top sellers.
Will have to wait to see when the first few waves of user reviews are going to drop to see if there's any glaring technical issues that may make this game a flash in the pan or if it will have sticking power.

The Forever Winter Day 1 CCU record - 12,611
So, yeah... 48% Steam rating with 513 reviews.
Most people complaining about horrible and uneven performance.

Monster Hunter Wilds specs are out. same specs as Dragon's Dogma 2. hold on to your buttcheeks yall

It's so joever, RE engine open world strikes again.

 

[Person]

Sony is releasing a remaster for their 2020 release of Horizon Zero Dawn and adding a mandatory PSN login.

Account for PlayStation Network required on PC.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Sony is releasing a remaster for their 2020 release of Horizon Zero Dawn and adding a mandatory PSN login.

will they change things so that mod that removes PSN login stops working?

 

[BoktaiFan]

Sony is releasing a remaster for their 2020 release of Horizon Zero Dawn and adding a mandatory PSN login.

Wow now that's going to go over well....

 

[Maabus1999]

Sony is releasing a remaster for their 2020 release of Horizon Zero Dawn and adding a mandatory PSN login.

Like Ragnarok, modding out PSN reqts is going to become a popular move in the modding scene. Have to see if Sony pushes back here.

 

[awng782]

Dragons Dogma 2's legs were kneecapped by its performance issues, I could see the same happening to Wilds if Capcom hasn't improved anything over the last year.

 

[Godzilla]

It's so joever, RE engine open world strikes again.

i'm guessing this is a 30/4k + RT with PSSR on the Pro.

PS5 at 30/1440p no RT

 

[Kirby64]

Hasn't DD2's performance massively improved recently?

 

[Nokia]

Hasn't DD2's performance massively improved recently?

They've been patching it to this day, yeah. It'd be for the best if Capcom launched a demo or benchmark tool for Wilds so players could test their rigs.

 

[Drblitzk]

Hasn't DD2's performance massively improved recently?

Yes but it still bad, in latest DF direct they talk about it, the only thing that gives me hope is that MHWilds is not really open world and doesn't have big cities with tons of NPC that react to monsters, unless, they are dumb and add something similar, here is hoping...

 

[Guarabyra]

It's so joever, RE engine open world strikes again.

That doesn't really mean anything. Them recommending frame gen for 60 fps does, however.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Sony is releasing a remaster for their 2020 release of Horizon Zero Dawn and adding a mandatory PSN login.

Oh SIE...

That doesn't really mean anything. Them recommending frame gen for 60 fps does, however.

It's what I meant. When you look at the specs, what that gives you and then you look at what the game is aiming for.
Biggest maps in the franchise, most simulation, more monsters on screen, etc...

Monster Hunter Wilds is currently #1 on the global top sellers list though. No surprise, people are hyped.

Yes but it still bad, in latest DF direct they talk about it, the only thing that gives me hope is that MHWilds is not really open world and doesn't have big cities with tons of NPC that react to monsters, unless, they are dumb and add something similar, here is hoping...

It's still maps in terms of gameplay but they'll be larger, so you won't have the absolute lowest of lows like the major city in DD2, but it'll still be a very heavy game when you're going to be in the thick of it.

 

[KarlRemarx]

It's still maps in terms of gameplay but they'll be larger, so you won't have the absolute lowest of lows like the major city in DD2, but it'll still be a very heavy game when you're going to be in the thick of it.

Yes, I think the performance demand from DD2->MHW will switch from "absolutely gigantic NPC demands situationally in big towns" to "lower NPC/monster demands, but at all times".

 

[Godzilla]

Wildlife NPCs are still NPCs, they will demand a lot of extra CPU grunt, just like DD2 did.

And World already went big on the density, Wilds can't go back, it even has to push it forward.

I feel the RE Engine is just not suitable for open world games with a large amount of NPCs driving the CPU load, between this disaster of requirements and DD2 it certainly seems that way.

 

[ILikeFeet]

The Forever Winter Day 1 CCU record - 12,611
So, yeah... 48% Steam rating with 513 reviews.
Most people complaining about horrible and uneven performance.

I decided to take a look at the reviews myself. forget the performance, what the fuck is up with that water mechanic!? it's a roguelike where if you run out of water, you're game ends and you lose everything save XP, which is fine. but water is a resource that depletes even when you're not playing the game, so you're punished for not playing the game essentially.

yea, no wonder the reviews are low. this will just bleed the game dry (heh) if they don't change this, but it looks like they didn't listen to the feedback of this problem before launching

 

[Frost Ace]

Metaphor's Steam demo just went live, though it'll take a minute to start filling up as I think the download is most or all of the final game.

 

[Tuvai]

Assassins Creed Shadows will now be on Steam Day 1.
Those pre-order numbers & Star Wars Outlaws PC uplay numbers must have been pretty abysmal.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Star Wars Outlaws coming to Steam on November 21st as well

 

[Guarabyra]

Assassins Creed Shadows will now be on Steam Day 1.
Those pre-order numbers & Star Wars Outlaws PC uplay numbers must have been pretty abysmal.

Was Ubisoft the last big publisher that didn't do day one steam releases?

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Was Ubisoft the last big publisher that didn't do day one steam releases?

There's two left no? With Blizzard(Diablo 4 expansion incoming Day 1) and Ubisoft releasing Day 1 all that remains is...
Rockstar and Epic Games

 

[Guarabyra]

There's two left no? With Blizzard(Diablo 4 expansion incoming Day 1) and Ubisoft releasing Day 1 all that remains is...
Rockstar and Epic Games

I kinda doubt Rockstar is going to do that month of EGS exclusivity again haha

 

[ILikeFeet]

Metaphor demo is out. CCU - 5620; I'm reading reports of poor performance on Steam Deck, and just general performance weirdness. settings are garbage, and no AA options it seems. maybe it's time to retire this engine

https://steamdb.info/app/3130330/charts/

 

[Kirby64]

Metaphor demo is out. CCU - 5620; I'm reading reports of poor performance on Steam Deck, and just general performance weirdness. settings are garbage, and no AA options it seems. maybe it's time to retire this engine

https://steamdb.info/app/3130330/charts/

Technically there is an AA option... super sampling. "Atlus makes an engine" was always going to end in tears at some point though.

 

[Person]

A delay never looks good, but a delay to get a day-1 Steam release is much better than blowing all their marketing budget on a uplay release. They made the right decision.

 

[Guarabyra]

It did strike me as odd that they put a lot of effort on making a really high-end PC version(way ahead of consoles) and... didn't sell the game in the store PC gamers mostly use.

 

[Lelouch0612]

It did strike me as odd that they put a lot of effort on making a really high-end PC version(way ahead of consoles) and... didn't sell the game in the store PC gamers mostly use.

From what I understand, they had a deal with Epic which exluded D1 Steam releases.

 

[Guarabyra]

From what I understand, they had a deal with Epic which exluded D1 Steam releases.

Well they terminated that with the quickness after Outlaws bombed

 

[Godzilla]

Well they terminated that with the quickness after Outlaws bombed

If i were Ubisoft i would put a clause of sales, like "if we don't hit X, we can put the game on other storefronts from x day"

 

[ILikeFeet]

If i were Ubisoft i would put a clause of sales, like "if we don't hit X, we can put the game on other storefronts from x day"

that's a bad clause because it trains people to wait. and they're already trained to wait!

 

[Guarabyra]

Honestly I don't even think they have a deal at this point, in my opinion they just wanted to prop up their own store(and ubi+) and released on EGS as a side thing because of the cut and epic's first run program.

 

[salesguy]

the EGS numbers of Destiny players are abysmal like 1-2% vs steam close to a third of players

it seems like pc games store is one of those things that naturally trends to a monopoly, and it became steam. then, like something like youtube, eventually they get so big with so many years and decades of incredibly expensive infrastructure behind them its impossible for anyone new to come in and compete. the amount of money and time that would have to be spent to rival the highly polished machine that is yt, if even possible, would be just nuts. What they call in investing a moat. Very hard to compete, the business has a moat around it.

I thought since the publishers hold the games, the content, they might eventually break steam. But it didn't seem to happen.

Since I love checked the Destiny numbers, 9-24/25, EGS had 8k players D2 players and Steam 108k. Out of 426k total (The rest on PS/Xbox). So like 11-1. Thats actually better for EGS than I expected. It's always possible EGS had some free giveaway of Destiny content that boosted them recently though. EGS came out of the gate strong in D2 because they gave away many free expansion IIRC, but went straight down basically since.

Also Warhammer still #2 bestseller to only steam deck (which is on sale and at an advantage in a revenue chart). And holding ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds new preorder. Seems very good. Release date 9-9.

I have no idea how Steam Spy "owner" estimates are looked at here, but I havent seen a single number guesstimate for Warhammer (could have missed it) and i was really curious. Steam Spy has it at 2 to 5 million.

maybe they can do a 5 or even 10m sold pr soon, after adding console sales. Edit: guess 10m seems aggressive in the short term. If we take Steam Spy midpoint that'd be 3.5 on PC. And Although it ranked high on Xbox stores, did #1 week in UK retail (not much to brag of) I believe it was PC weighted. still i have to imagine developer is really pleased.

Warhammer has trounced many of the more talked about games here in steamspy estimates like Ragnarok and FF XVI which released later but are currently estimated at 200-500k. but satisfactory has trounced it, at 5-10m. satisfactory is 39.99.

 

[master94ga]

From what I understand, they had a deal with Epic which exluded D1 Steam releases.

I don't think they had any deal because they just changed their mind after the flop of Outlaws. Probably they just wanted to go for better margins and give less money as possible to other store.

 

[ikeiv1]

the EGS numbers of Destiny players are abysmal like 1-2% vs steam close to a third of players

it seems like pc games store is one of those things that naturally trends to a monopoly, and it became steam. then, like something like youtube, eventually they get so big with so many years and decades of incredibly expensive infrastructure behind them its impossible for anyone new to come in and compete. the amount of money and time that would have to be spent to rival the highly polished machine that is yt, if even possible, would be just nuts. What they call in investing a moat. Very hard to compete, the business has a moat around it.

I thought since the publishers hold the games, the content, they might eventually break steam. But it didn't seem to happen.

Since I love checked the Destiny numbers, 9-24/25, EGS had 8k players D2 players and Steam 108k. Out of 426k total (The rest on PS/Xbox). So like 11-1. Thats actually better for EGS than I expected. It's always possible EGS had some free giveaway of Destiny content that boosted them recently though. EGS came out of the gate strong in D2 because they gave away many free expansion IIRC, but went straight down basically since.

Also Warhammer still #2 bestseller to only steam deck (which is on sale and at an advantage in a revenue chart). And holding ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds new preorder. Seems very good. Release date 9-9.

I have no idea how Steam Spy "owner" estimates are looked at here, but I havent seen a single number guesstimate for Warhammer (could have missed it) and i was really curious. Steam Spy has it at 2 to 5 million.

maybe they can do a 5 or even 10m sold pr soon, after adding console sales. Edit: guess 10m seems aggressive in the short term. If we take Steam Spy midpoint that'd be 3.5 on PC. And Although it ranked high on Xbox stores, did #1 week in UK retail (not much to brag of) I believe it was PC weighted. still i have to imagine developer is really pleased.

Warhammer has trounced many of the more talked about games here in steamspy estimates like Ragnarok and FF XVI which released later but are currently estimated at 200-500k. but satisfactory has trounced it, at 5-10m. satisfactory is 39.99.

Do note that Satisfactory had already sold close to 5 million units well before its 1.0 release. It has been on early access for a while.

 

[Lelouch0612]

I don't think they had any deal because they just changed their mind after the flop of Outlaws. Probably they just wanted to go for better margins and give less money as possible to other store.

Shadows might have been delayed after the deal window's end too.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

A bit of a lull in terms of new releases(in terms of big ones), at least official releases that are we can track.
Throne and Liberty is coming out in October officially, but Early Access begins in a few hours.
EA FC 25 is out of Early Access tomorrow and it's back at #1 on the global top sellers


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Monster Hunter Wilds follow count boosted up 20k since the pre-orders/release date trailer.
People are clearly hyped to struggle with the game and its performance when it comes out.


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Metaphor: ReFantazio Demo new CCU record - 12,828
It's a good number, clearly indicating that people were curious about the game.
It's just unfortunate what's going on performance wise(lack of multi-threading and the game barely talks to your GPU) and also with the lack of sensible options. Image quality is also quite poor.

 

[Damage2]

Im not having much problem with Metaphor with PS5, but im a guy that played the entire Black Myth Wukong on PS5 and that shit was umplayable in some boss fights

 

[Guarabyra]

Monster Hunter Wilds follow count boosted up 20k since the pre-orders/release date trailer.
People are clearly hyped to struggle with the game and its performance when it comes out.

I mean that's the Monster Hunter tradition tbf guess ppl just got used to it lol

Edit: I saw some folks saying DXVK makes metaphor run a lot better btw, might be worth looking into that if you're interested in the game.

 

[Nokia]

I mean that's the Monster Hunter tradition tbf guess ppl just got used to it lol

Edit: I saw some folks saying DXVK makes metaphor run a lot better btw, might be worth looking into that if you're interested in the game.

There's also a SpecialK patch on the forums, Kaldaien plans on doing more with it in the future.

 

[GodlyTrident]

Metaphor: ReFantazio Demo new CCU record - 12,828
It's a good number, clearly indicating that people were curious about the game.
It's just unfortunate what's going on performance wise(lack of multi-threading and the game barely talks to your GPU) and also with the lack of sensible options. Image quality is also quite poor.

yeah, I think the performance issues in demo might tank it overall sales performance. Hope they are able to address it fast.

 

[Person]

Im not having much problem with Metaphor with PS5, but im a guy that played the entire Black Myth Wukong on PS5 and that shit was umplayable in some boss fights

Its image quality problems on PS5 are very obvious to me, but I also forget about them very quickly. I later reinstalled it on PC and ran it at 4K and 200% rendering scale, and it's beautiful but such a brute force solution is not a realistic ask to most players; DLSS would be a very nice thing to have, Atlus.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

yeah, I think the performance issues in demo might tank it overall sales performance. Hope they are able to address it fast.

They won't be able to. A lot of the issues are baked into how the engine handle things and have been longstanding issues that have never been fixed. It's fairly criminal how the game simply won't utilize the CPU/GPU power of setups. In a perfect world, this game should be able to run on a toaster at a fairly decent FPS because there's nothing here that's very hard to run. Alas, that's not what we're seeing here.

Its image quality problems on PS5 are very obvious to me, but I also forget about them very quickly. I later reinstalled it on PC and ran it at 4K and 200% rendering scale, and it's beautiful but such a brute force solution is not a realistic ask to most players; DLSS would be a very nice thing to have, Atlus.

That would be tremendous for the image quality of the game considering their AA solution is "Oh, I guess that's a thing, should've looked into it." That and the fact it would be very useful in a future Switch 2 port.