phil1 wrote:So where's the cutoff for good info, I've asked friends ranging from 500 to 37000 hunterscore, so I've got a good idea of how many are playing, combined with the number of people in competitions, special events and those of my friends who were long time players, but have stopped playing. BTW I never believed the 6,000,000 player rubbish, nor the previous 5,000,000 or the 4,000,000.
Well, there are nearly 5 million users on Steam alone, if you're not afraid to let facts get in the way of your narrative...
Steam Spy or
Steam DB
Keep in mind, this is a near worldwide title, and is popular in areas of the world where Steam isn't. If you've been around this Forum for long, you know how Steam is bashed, and a relatively high percentage of players just refuse to use it. With 4.7 million Steam users, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to have well over a million more using the web launcher.
Also, the numbers being thrown around here are for concurrent players, not total players. There have been around 34k unique Steam players in the past 2 weeks with an average 4 hour playtime, which is a slight increase from the prior 2 weeks. Classic has been riding a high that started around the launch of Timbergold & was further bolstered by the announcement & subsequent launch of CotW. It looks like, based on the charts, that the CotW release brought many players to Classic, and that peak has been trailing off a bit. That peak nearly reached the previous high from the initial Steam launch, which is hardly a doom & gloom scenario. The current numbers (daily concurrent) are still higher than pre-CotW.
I think it's a little premature to start talking doom/gloom for Classic. Literally everything that you can look at speaks to the opposite. EW is currently making big investments into Classic (see Trophy Lodge, for which this discussion is intended). Steam chart numbers just coming off near all-time high. Can you think of any other games reaching their Steam release numbers 2 years after launch?