Is Steam Graphs Real

[DroopSnoot]

Hi i found this :

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=63950&from=0

Which of course doesnt tie in with what people say here as most seem to be enjoying MP nightly.
So is the steam graph a bogus website now? I say now because Ive seen it working correctly for other games.

[fruitbat]

I'd say that's about right. I'd bet a pint those peaks are when the last beta patches came out.

I've never seen more than about 80 people online, if that when i have been in the last few months at any one time, although i haven't been online that often myself.

[palker4]

The site list gathers data from steam top 100 played games. If COD did not make it on the list in a give day it will show 0.

[III/JG53_Don]

So the graph shows only the appearances of players in MP?
The offline players are not taken into consideration?

Considering palker4s comment, if the online player numbers are well below maybe 250 people, the chart will show nothing. (since then it will most obviously not be able to get under the top 100 played games at that time)

Anyway an interesting chart... hope it will show some new climaxes in the nearest future ;)

[jibo]

Palker4 is right and i'am currently buying some stocks

[JG5_emil]

I dont think this is MP only.

When you play offline you are still connected to steam (unless in offline mode) so it will record that as well.

I could be wrong of course but doesn't look right to me.

[III/JG53_Don]

But only round about 1.000 players at release? Seems very low...
on the other hand considering the horrible state of the game back then, maybe not more than 1.000 players played the game at the exact same time....
I mean for the overwhelming majority the game was totally unplayable at the beginning

I dunno what the graph show, it seems a little bit shady
But honestly I hope that these are online counts, not overall player numbers! ;)

[DroopSnoot]

from what i have seen its overall online players, i guess SP should be ruled out since no-one is sure, but still it looks very bleak when you look at the graph :(

[Madfish]

The site list gathers data from steam top 100 played games. If COD did not make it on the list in a give day it will show 0.

So the graph shows only the appearances of players in MP?
The offline players are not taken into consideration?


palker4 is right.


Steam reports the top 100 games sorted by players playing the game.
Players count in both, single AND multiplayer - as long as they are connected to steam.
Players using the Steam "Offline Mode" won't count
Games with less players than position 100 will show up with a 0 since steam doesn't output them on their stat page.

You can access the stat page here: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

[III/JG53_Don]

Wow in this list are quite a few older Total War games, even the old Rome :-) Interesting...

We can only hope that with the upcoming patch (and hopefully a few more in the future) this game gets a new revival. Just better gameperformance wont push it that much I'm afraid..i it has to be at least bugfree.
Better before the sequel to make its start as best as possible.

[Madfish]

Most of these games on the stat page are expected to be played more than a sim. Also there's no other real sim on there. Not even casual titles like HAWX, none of the DCS games, no Take on Helicopters, not even Wings of Prey... nothing.

Personally I believe a well written and emotional campaign would be the best selling point. Scripted, voiced over, maybe even having a few nice cutscenes.

I'd enjoy that and it's what most fan projects fail at. I wouldn't even mind if it was in native language (e.g. Russian / German with subtitles for the Moscow theatre).

But that's another topic :-P

[III/JG53_Don]

Exactly, we need a campaign to get the newbies into the game. Just some quick missions and kludgy missions combined to a 6 mission long campaign dont bind people to the game.

Like the Deasastersoft campaigns as a stock campaign. Lovely missions with historical accuracy to make the player part of the events.
I by far prefer an accurate scripted campaign rathzer than a dynamic one which missions are one like the other.

[ElAurens]

I'm surprised that Cliffs showed up in the Steam top 100 at all.

Do you have any idea how small our niche (combat flight simulation) actually is?

[Tone71]

I'm surprised that Cliffs showed up in the Steam top 100 at all.

Do you have any idea how small our niche (combat flight simulation) actually is?

I had no idea at all until I saw that list! Just had a look and The Witcher is currently at the bottom with 496 players online; that means the number playing CLoD (via Steam and not in 'Steam offline' mode) is less than that. A lot less than I thought.
Over a thousand are playing Railworks... go figure.

[SIDWULF]

Graph dosen't load for me

[DroopSnoot]

@ sid, there you go mate:

http://i50.tinypic.com/dzjqpw.jpg

ArmA II & Arrowhead are sims and on steam but that is a smallish niche but with a huge community.

I think if you take Clod alone then its a small niche but if you take the entrie flight sim genre then that isnt so small by any means.

[Madfish]

I wouldn't call ArmA a sim though. It's an FPS and thus attracts a lot of people "by nature".

Steam shows a sad truth about the real numbers of an extremely small but also very picky niche. Weak sales but very high expectations. An explosive mixture.

[jibo]

sad truth indeed, add to it costly and long term development cycle
even Microsoft has given up on this, Modern Military is now even more niche than WWs you cant imagine.

The last men standing are in Russia, Eagle Dynamics and 1C, with their programming skills they could have easily left the boat, those are passion driven projects.

Btw i'am confident complex games is the only way to go all others will end up on consoles and Ipads

[SlipBall]

Graph dosen't load for me


Same here:confused:

[ACE-OF-ACES]

So are you guys saying you are just now realising that flight sims are a niche market?

That is to say flight sims are the red headed step child of games? ;)

Welcome to 1998! ;)

[SlipBall]

So are you guys saying you are just now realising that flight sims are a niche market?

That is to say flight sims are the red headed step child of games? ;)

Welcome to 1998! ;)



So true, it is...1c is moving in the right direction IMHO, they need to get to a place of a FPS with air support...thats where we come in:grin:

[Force10]

So are you guys saying you are just now realising that flight sims are a niche market?

That is to say flight sims are the red headed step child of games? ;)

Welcome to 1998! ;)

They might not be as niche' as you think. MSFS X sold over 300,000 units. I would certainly say that CLOD in it's current state is a niche' product. My point is that there are plenty of other game types that are more "redheaded" than flight sims.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

So true, it is...1c is moving in the right direction IMHO, they need to get to a place of a FPS with air support...thats where we come in:grin:
Bingo

Which I think explains why 1C is putting so much effort into the ground controlled vehicals..

[ACE-OF-ACES]

They might not be as niche' as you think.
Trust me it is

And to be more specific.. I am talking about combat flight sims

[Force10]

And to be more specific.. I am talking about combat flight sims


Fair enough...but maybe we shouldn't use CLOD's flatline numbers as a barometer for how the whole combat flight sim genre is doing. We are talking about the worst flight sim launch in history, that has customers that still can't/won't use the product. Not a good indicator for how the whole genre is doing.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Fair enough...but maybe we shouldn't use CLOD's flatline numbers as a barometer for how the whole combat flight sim genre is doing.
Guess you missed the post in this thread that pointed out the graphs don't show any values below 100.. That is to say if 99 users were on it would show up as ZERO

We are talking about the worst flight sim launch in history, that has customers that still can't/won't use the product. Not a good indicator for how the whole genre is doing.
Could be worse..

This flight sim could have been made by the devs who made Silent Hunter 5 who took the $ and ran leaving behind a buggie sub sim.. Folks would do themselfs well to STOP and remember that befor posting a whinnie 'are we there yet' post

[ParaB]

Could be worse...

Yup. Someone could hit me over the head with a baseball bat every time I start CloD.

Other than that I have a hard time remembering a similar horrible release. Luftwaffe Commander perhaps.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Yup. Someone could hit me over the head with a baseball bat every time I start CloD.
Not srue if that happened to the Silent Hunter 5 users..

But having the devs drop all support for that game within months of release probally had that feeling of being hit over the head with a bat.

Other than that I have a hard time remembering a similar horrible release. Luftwaffe Commander perhaps.
Plenty of games out there with worse releases.. But if you wanted to focus on a flight sim maker.. Take a look at DCS.. If you think 1C is bad by anouncing a 'sequal' that is going to add new features and planes and maps.. How does that compare to DCS BlackShark where they just re-released the same game with a few new features and fixes.

Long story short, all new games are very complex..

IT IS UNREALISTIC TO EXPECT ANY GAME TO BE RELEASED BUG FREE!

With that said, I think we should be glad to hear that 1C is still 'working' on it instead of doing what the SH5 devs did

[Force10]

Guess you missed the post in this thread that pointed out the graphs don't show any values below 100.. That is to say if 99 users were on it would show up as ZERO


Guess your missing my point....Your looking for numbers on steam for CLOD and basing the whole genre on one game and on one client. 1946 is still doing well on hyperlobby, you have the DCS series that doesn't really have a way to track numbers, ROF, and not to mention the vast majority that flies offline like myself.

BTW: I was looking at old numbers for MSFS X...it sold a million units.

[jibo]

maybe you should ask to formers employees of Sierra-Dynamix/MicroProse/Origin/Rowan-Empire/Jane's-EA/DID-Rage/MS Games Studios (CFS)
how roomy the niche was
With a shrinking pc market, a ongoing crisis, the rise of no brainer games etc ...
It was hard for everybody, only FPS really made it through.
The different genres are slowly crawling back (apart sub-sim which of course remains underwater) so the youth is progressively rediscovering the joy of a real rewarding game. (other rewards than angry bird stars).

It's nice to see that some good old studios are still in the place (codemasters, the creative assembly, Bioware ...)
There is also a trend of successful revivals (mass effect, soon command and conquer ...)
I was reading a interview of the Japanese lead programmer of Final Fantasy series he said the gameplay hasn't change in 10 years, eventually the market is rebuilding itself on the same basis.
And IL2 will shine for 20 years, can't you hear it approaching, trutrutrutthhhffffffffffff

[ATAG_Bliss]

I don't know how accurate that list is. Considering steam still fails to authenticate, servers get steam error messages almost by the second etc., I doubt it's reporting correctly for cliffs atm.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Guess your missing my point....
Nope

[ACE-OF-ACES]

maybe you should ask to formers employees of Sierra-Dynamix/MicroProse/Origin/Rowan-Empire/Jane's-EA/DID-Rage/MS Games Studios (CFS)
how roomy the niche was
With a shrinking pc market, a ongoing crisis, the rise of no brainer games etc ...
Bingo!

I hope your right about those sorts of game making a come back.. But I free the no brainer X-Box generation will allways outnumber them

[jibo]

oh my bad i forgot Novalogic the guys are still selling Comanche 4 on their website btw

@Ace of Aces some brain cells will never be recovered i agree
consoles are here to stay and the success of ModernWarfare3 with a engine older than the gamers is not a good sign.

I wanted to be a little bit optimistic there is some bright spots.
While we have fewer games available, some of them are the best ever made.
RoF is currently the best WWI game ever made, CoD/BoM will be the best WWII game ever etc ...
while the average quality is tumbling we have several jewels arising and CoD is not the only one. ( latest total war : shogun, comes to my mind)

[ACE-OF-ACES]

@Ace of Aces some brain cells will never be recovered i agree consoles are here to stay and the success of ModernWarfare3 with a engine older than the gamers is not a good sign.
So true.. sad but true

I wanted to be a little bit optimistic there is some bright spots. While we have fewer games available, some of them are the best ever made.
Agreed 100%

RoF is currently the best WWI game ever made,
Yes.. we have come a long way since Dynamix's 1991 Red Baron! But that game will always have a special place in my hart! ;)

CoD/BoM will be the best WWII game ever etc ...
Agreed 100%.. And appears it will NOT be limited to just flying.. It has the potential to be the holy grail of games some of us have been talking about for 20+ years.. A game with it's main focus on flight simming, but includes FPS stuff for the targe.. I mean tankers out there! ;)

while the average quality is tumbling we have several jewels arising and CoD is not the only one. ( latest total war : shogun, comes to my mind)
So in essence, quality over quality! I can live with that! ;)

[DroopSnoot]

I wouldn't call ArmA a sim though. It's an FPS and thus attracts a lot of people "by nature"..

Its a battle simulator, i say this as the aim was to accurately depict what being in a battle feels and looks like as well as showing its true pace and nature, i feel it nails this 100% for infantry and vehicle warfare making it far from mainstream FPS, its like the difference between Birds of Prey and IL2 Cliffs of Dover.

[Madfish]

.

Its a battle simulator, i say this as the aim was to accurately depict what being in a battle feels and looks like as well as showing its true pace and nature, i feel it nails this 100% for infantry and vehicle warfare making it far from mainstream FPS, its like the difference between Birds of Prey and IL2 Cliffs of Dover.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, I like ArmA 2 and have all the expansions for it - it's not a sim though. ArmA 3 might take it a step further but ArmA 2 felt a little too... virtual.
It did a good job with infrantry, was okay for vehicles. But the Choppers and planes were a joke.

But then again. Think about it like this:
ArmA was 90% of the time an FPS. You had a mouse, a keyboard and you ran around and shot at things. You didn't need, and this is the important difference, ANY additional hardware. You didn't need a joystick, rudder pedals, a seat for simming, steering wheel, shifters etc.


The biggest issue todays sim games have are:

hardware requirements (yoke, throttle, sticks, pedals, wheels etc.)
little or zero support for multiplayer and community interfacing
boring and time wasting campaigns (unemotional, unsatisfying)


Hardware and interfacing should be obvious. Campaigns are a big problem though. Most games have decently written stories and campaigns these days. Sim titles however are just a joke. It's not hard to make a mission where you take off at airport A and a flight of X planes is heading towards you and you need to intercept. For the reality lovers such missions could be done in like a day or so by most skilled people here on the forums. But a decent campaign with voice overs, cut scenes, emotional twists and turns... a vivid living story... that's hard to achieve.

So the consequence is that the genre is unattractive to many players simply because the games are bland and boring. The fidelity of simulation DOES NOT MATTER. See World of Tanks. Totally unrealistic crap but players play it in the thousands and dump LOADS of money into that "game". In that case it wasn't the good story but the not-time-wasting gameplay and the multiplayer interfacing.

There's loads of examples but if the sim genre wants to survive they need to tune more than just their sounds, damage model, flight model or whatever.

[JimmyGiro]

There's not an inherent problem with niche markets, as long as you are the only big fish in the pond.

Having said that, there's nothing wrong with venturing into other platforms, to expand the market for your product. And one untapped field is the growing Linux community. Make a port to that system, and the starved Linux base, which uses 'wine' to play regular pc games if it can, will buy the product out of sheer gratitude.

[Madfish]

I run linux myself and I highly doubt that linux would be the best platform to pick when playing a game that needs to interface with tons of additional hardware.

Linux is a great market for casual games though.

[jibo]

talking about linux, Gabe Newell was very unhappy of Windows 8 and he's now personally in charge of the forthcoming Steam platform for linux