Maybe this will get lost as Just Another Comment but…

I feel like subscription services should actually serve as a true platform for those kinds of games. Something like joining a party playing Game X, and while you play your round(s), Game Y, or a slice of Game Y is downloading. When you finish your round of Game X you get switched to Game Y and it goes on and on, with some kind of voting on the next game.

There is a whole infrastructure dedicated for this required, and nevermind the multiplatform issues.

It just feels like the interactive nature of gaming would deliver one the one issue of streaming services where “there’s nothing to watch”. The cynic in me sees this as just another place to cram ads.

I’ll put my two cents in. I never bought the game because of the invasive anti cheat. I was still tempted until they required PlayStation account linking.

I didn’t get it initially because it looked very repetitive and cheesy (in a bad way). Some of my friends played it which made me look into it and by the time I may have gave in and tried it they introduced account linking and I full noped out of it.

Wait, was this heralded as some live service forever game?

Happens with all unestablished games

Oh no, anyway.

And the Sony account requirement will be reimplemented in 3… 2… 1…

Without any real sense of progression, I just couldn’t find a reason to play unless I had a friend who was already online and playing. Unlocking new weapons and whatnot is fun until its not, and when I don’t have the minutia that comes with an MMO or the randomness that comes with a rogue-like, I don’t have anything to look forward to from the next run. There was no surprise to the game, and the initial luster faded pretty quickly when I realised what the treadmill was going to be. If there had been a more single player focused bit to it, I may have lasted longer, but being so heavily reliant on a party meant it was a group of friends, or some randos that are going to waste my time.

That is just the natural lifecycle of every multiplayer game

Looked like that kind of game. And with all the hype. Could never have lasted.

And other major expansions for elden ring and FFXIV released recently. There’s potential overlap in the player base. 90% is a big dip though.

The player base was always going to decline significantly.

It doesn’t have the same kind of slow grind and wide open maps with tonnes of things to interact with that kept up the populations of a game like WoW or Overwatch, so it was going to naturally decline anyway as most people got their fill of the game play and move on to the next game. Anything that is comparable either had a ton of content that was drip fed or has random loot boxes to keep people playing. This game lets you earn enough to play even the highest levels of play fairly quickly, with getting everything taking a bit longer.

The remaining population is actually pretty high for this kind of game, and it is far from dying. I play randoms when friends aren’t on even though I have unlocked all the upgrades to earn myself medals, but also to help out the other players because the game does promote team play even with all the accidental team kills. I never have to wait when there are more than 1,000 players on a planet, and the there are often several planets with several thousand even when people aren’t grouped up for major orders.

The community is engaged and while there will certainly be more of a decline as time passes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the game gets a significant bump in player activity (old players coming back) when they introduce the next faction. Probably not double whatever population is there when it hits, but maybe 50% increase as people come to check out the new content. I think the rapid release was their original plan to keep the player base going and I’m happy they slowed down to address bugs and do quality of life improvements for a bit.

This game also has the most friendly, or at least least antagonistic, player base I have ever experienced in an online game. Although most random games don’t have anyone speak up unless I do first, people help each other out, attempt to get everyone out, and there is often hugs on the ship after extraction. I have only had one player grief in dozens of random games and one match had someone who was rude. Far, far fewer negative experiences than any other game I’ve played.

It may get down to 3% of the highest number of players and will still be alive and kicking for those that do enjoy the game play.

deleted by creator

How to be successful long term:

1. Make a good game

2. Don’t ship your game with a rootkit

3. Don’t ban entire regions from your game

As someone who loves Helldivers 2 but has not played in about a month and a half, it’s summer Forbes. People are also playing less games than normal.

That’s like saying breaking bad has lost 99% of its viewers with no sign of recovery. L take