No Man's Sky Concurrent PC Player Count Down 90% Less than Two Weeks After Release

ffronw

I am a meat popsicle
Oct 24, 2013
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No Man's Sky Concurrent PC Player Count Down 90% Less than Two Weeks After Release

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1345/1345368.jpgNo Man's Sky launched to great fanfare, but its player counts have dropped dramatically since then.

When No Man's Sky launched on August 12, there were a number of people looking forward to playing it. This was evidenced by the game's concurrent player count, which peaked at 212,604. Today, it's down to just over 19,000 - a drop of around 90 percent. Now, there are some caveasts to those numbers.

First off, these numbers only represent concurrent player counts - that is players who are online at the same time. They don't necessarily represent the full size of the community, although they are representative. However, VG247 reported that the UK charts showed an 81% drop in sales [http://www.vg247.com/2016/08/22/uk-charts-no-mans-sky-second-week-sales-down-by-81/] in its second week.

While these numbers represent a huge drop, it's not unprecedented. Other games have seen similar drops in the past, including Fallout 4 (74 percent in first month), Battleborn (82 percent in first month), and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt fell by 71 percent in its first month. It's not terribly unusual for games, especially games that have a lot of hype, to lose a lot of their concurrent players once the excitement around launch has died down. It can be even worse in the case of games that face issues, as No Man's Sky has on PC.

That said, a 90 percent drop is still statistically significant. Many players have expressed their disappointment in the game, and there was even a Reddit post that spawned an entire website [http://www.onemanslie.info/the-original-reddit-post/] documenting the features that players have found missing.

If you haven't been following No Man's Sky, checking out Yahtzee's review in this week's Zero Punctuation [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/116922-No-Mans-Sky-Review] is a great place to start.

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Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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I appreciate that you provided some other examples for comparison.

The game apparently sold like hot cakes before word got around though. I wonder if those responsible have already made enough money to just not give a shit.
 

Naldan

You Are Interested. Certainly.
Feb 25, 2015
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Can't wait for those who feel the urge to justify this. I'm not talking about people who simply enjoy the game for what it is. It's because the mental gymnastics are so outstanding that I might even learn something from that to justify outlandish stuff with almost no basis in reality in the future.
 

Remus

Reprogrammed Spambot
Nov 24, 2012
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Naldan said:
Can't wait for those who feel the urge to justify this. I'm not talking about people who simply enjoy the game for what it is. It's because the mental gymnastics are so outstanding that I might even learn something from that to justify outlandish stuff with almost no basis in reality in the future.
That's videogame advertising for you. It's been the industry standard since, oh, Populus, Peter Molyneux's original creation.
 

RedDeadFred

Illusions, Michael!
May 13, 2009
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Not that surprising. People realized that they were going to be doing the same boring things over and over, so they stopped playing.
 

The Enquirer

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Apr 10, 2013
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I earlier made a comparison to this being similar to Mount and Blade but in space. I rescind that comparison. That game actually gave you a ton of different stuff to do.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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Zhukov said:
The game apparently sold like hot cakes before word got around though. I wonder if those responsible have already made enough money to just not give a shit.
I would love to see the statistics on Steam refunds.

On a different note, it makes sense to me that even if every person who buys a game plays it to completion, concurrent player numbers would still drop like a stone after release week. On release week everyone makes time to go and play the new game, there's midnight releases, people want to talk to each other about it and so on. Later on you fit the game about your life, especially with something like Fallout or Witcher that would take the adult gamer with a full time time job several weeks (or months) to to complete. They cant all be on at the same time.

90% is still pretty rough though.
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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fix-the-spade said:
I would love to see the statistics on Steam refunds.
Well only Steam has this information and they never share.

Next best thing though, is Steam Charts; http://steamcharts.com/app/275850#All

Which doesnt really tell you anything the article doesnt already summarise. But you can look at the drop in players after Day One and you could guess that at least some of those people refunded.
 

Jadak

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Nov 4, 2008
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fix-the-spade said:
I would love to see the statistics on Steam refunds.
I'd be surprised if they're all that high given the refund requirement of not playing the game more than two hours.

As dull and repetitive as No Man's Sky is, every feature is also a huge time sink and you can easily go well over that before truly accepting what a waste it is.
 

BeerTent

Resident Furry Pimp
May 8, 2011
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The website linked in the article is absolutely brutal. [http://www.onemanslie.info/the-original-reddit-post/]

It truly is a shame that this happened with such an exciting concept. It's a good thing that the price-point was so insane. I would have easily bought it for $40CAD, or $30.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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BeerTent said:
The website linked in the article is absolutely brutal. [http://www.onemanslie.info/the-original-reddit-post/]

It truly is a shame that this happened with such an exciting concept. It's a good thing that the price-point was so insane. I would have easily bought it for $40CAD, or $30.
Oh god damnit. and here i though i was original for once with the one mans lie pun....

Yeah i saw that reddit post, its not something i would ever support. And there are better games for cheaper anyway.
 

Metalrocks

New member
Jan 15, 2009
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i was really interested in this game when i have heard about it. but two things stopped me from getting it.
1. the price was too high.
2. after hearing the news from angry joe and generally the comments and reviews on steam that many are disappointed.

im glad i have kept my fingers of it. i guess im better of waiting for the whole lot of witcher 3.
 

saltyanon

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Sep 18, 2013
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While these numbers represent a huge drop, it's not unprecedented. Other games have seen similar drops in the past, including Fallout 4 (74 percent in first month), Battleborn (82 percent in first month), and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt fell by 71 percent in its first month.
That's first month, not two weeks. Is that not an invalid comparison?
 

Clive Howlitzer

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Jan 27, 2011
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Not surprising to have singleplayer RPGs drop off heavily after the first month. (Fallout 4 and Witcher 3). The huge drop for Battleborn is rough though. That community must be dead.
 

Kahani

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May 25, 2011
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ffronw said:
That said, a 90 percent drop is still statistically significant.
Really? Perhaps you could give us the p-value and standard deviation? Or perhaps you didn't actually mean "statistically significant" at all. Hint - it doesn't mean "big".
 

Gorrath

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Feb 22, 2013
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Kahani said:
ffronw said:
That said, a 90 percent drop is still statistically significant.
Really? Perhaps you could give us the p-value and standard deviation? Or perhaps you didn't actually mean "statistically significant" at all. Hint - it doesn't mean "big".
Or perhaps he was using the term colloquially, much as people do with the word theory? Just a thought.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Jan 20, 2010
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The Enquirer said:
I earlier made a comparison to this being similar to Mount and Blade but in space. I rescind that comparison. That game actually gave you a ton of different stuff to do.
Damn right. M&B vanilla beats NMS in content, which says something about Hello Games.
 

Karadalis

New member
Apr 26, 2011
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No mans sky? More like... one mans Lie...

Oh well was to be expected. Hello games took the bold faced lie about mass effect 3s ending (you wont be presented with a, b or c choice at the end, 4 months before release) and applied it to the entire game.

And now it seems as if the game actually deletes your discovered plant and animal species including the names you gave them once you surpass a certain threshold according to some reddit users in no man skys own reddit board.

This game should get the Peter Molyneux award for blatant missrepresentation and broken promises.

So yeah, no surprise that the playercount dropped so quickly.
 

Lightspeaker

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Dec 31, 2011
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I'm not entirely sure Battleborn is the best thing to use in comparison there given that apparently that game is pretty dead. >_>