Because DoA is a f2p game on ps4 and xbone, but SoT is either a 60 dollar purchase or available in a 10 dollar subscription, só to even play the game you have to pay something (and also pay for gold on top of that).
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Sea of Thieves grows to over 5 million players (E3 4 million)
- Thread starter JINX
- Start date
See, this is where I think people get this wrong (and I still can't tell if you're being serious or mocking people asking for numbers or what!)
I'm sure Microsoft care a lot about other metrics. Sales numbers, Game Pass sub numbers, mtx revenue etc. It's all important to Microsoft of course. But in terms of numbers that they share with gaming fans on message boards, yes, engagement numbers are of course gonna be the ones to tout because they're almost always going to be very impressive with a service with low barrier to entry like Game Pass. The 'engagement' with Sea of Thieves (5 million) is an impressive number. It was an impressive number when GTS shared that figure too.
Don't mistake what numbers matter to Microsoft with what numbers matter for Microsoft to share with users of Resetera. Of course they're going to share the most impressive figure. You would too. Gamers who use this free message board have absolutely no reason to get sales figures or concurrent player numbers just as Fallout Boy fans are not entitled to sales figures of their last single and movie fans aren't entitled to the exact worldwide blu-ray sales of a movie. You might get those figures if the studio decides to share them. I don't stamp my feet and demand record sales from Sony Music when they share that x artist has 100 million streams on YouTube. You're a consumer. You're not entitled to them. Why do gamers demand such figures over and over. You buy and use the product. That's where your interaction ends.
Or even a free trail.
If most players dropped it shortly after playing it, then that would make Game pass a success more so than Sea of Thieves.
I think their point was more that the pace of SoT users compares favorably even to a broadly available F2P game, even without being a F2P game. They didn't seem confused about how F2P models work more generally, and statements out of the publisher about DoA centered on player counts, which makes it a good enough reference point. Players are the lifeblood of service games, and SoT has the benefit of any players being buyers or subscribers, on top of the Gold subscription.
Like I said, then the success would be tied more so to Game Pass.
You can't be serious. You think the specific game doesn't have a connection to the number of players it engages in a situation like this?
I keep trying to wrap my head around how you've got to this point but I can't figure it out. Lot's of players of Sea of Thieves (whether people that bought the game or subbed to Game Pass and played it) is a success for Sea of Thieves. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
I guess that happens, but much less than in a subscription service where you can try out each game for free.
That is nonsense. If you spend money in a MP focused game, you absolutely have a reason to get the concurrent numbers of players.
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Glad to hear the game's doing well. Myself and seven friends play almost every week (not at the same time, mind, as the game only allows four on a Galleon, so the crew members change often) and we're EXTREMELY excited over the new Cursed Sails content.
After it's somewhat terrible beginnings, this has turned into one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year, and they've done a good job at keeping me engaged between the large updates with the bi-weekly challenges.
After it's somewhat terrible beginnings, this has turned into one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year, and they've done a good job at keeping me engaged between the large updates with the bi-weekly challenges.
I totally get what they're saying though, in the sense of giving players info enough to know if a game is a graveyard or not. Now, that said, I think the combination individual announcements like the thread here and the "most played" rankings they give out for Live are more than adequate for that. To your point, there's obviously a difference between a practical amount of information and nitty-gritty specifics that's more the purview of hobbyist analysis.
(I'd still love to see avg daily users, just out of sheer curiosity.)
It's funny how MS used to parade about the sales of Halo last gen but now because their sales have dropped across the board they use other metrics to hide the data and maybe show the results in a positive light.
There is no agenda because the whole point of sales data is to compare sales.
Because it's something people got for so long, they refuse to see the future is changing. Getting the number of players is what is going to be going forward as subscriptions become more popular. However there will be a lot of people kicking and screaming as it moves that way. I get some people don't want to go the subscription route, I get it, but I like it personally. Maybe because I've played MMO's since I Ultima Online beta 4 and have paid for an MMO every month since then in one form or fashion, I just accepted it a long time ago lol
I'd better be entitled lol, or I would be the biggest fool on the planet for wasting my money on a MP focused game without knowing if it's dead or not.
But when a large amount of your players didn't actually buy the game (they got access to it via a sub), what's the point of comparing sales? Aren't they irrelevant?
If only 50,000 people (for example) are still playing that is only 1% of the original 5 million that downloaded, not great retention and would likely not be a worthwhile for continued investment from Microsoft.
What a stupid reply. Well done
No one here said they were entitled to them. But what's the point of stating 5 million players with no context or breakdown of figures?
It's simple.
If 400k people wanted to try the games out on Game Pass within the past month and Sea of Thieves was one of those games, but they dropped after playing it for a few hours then number is not that great. It's good that they tried it, but it's not great.
So tell me, how can 400k people playing it for only just a few hours be considered a huge success.
Did they ever add cosmetic micro-transactions? I haven't logged back in, was waiting for more content (now that it's here I'll jump back in soon). I'd assume that's coming soon to keep the game being more profitable. This is the perfect game to make money on cosmetics if they follow the Fortnite model imo.
I do. I want the concurrent players if I'm about to spend my money on an online only game outside of launch weeks.
I don't see how that is unreasonable, even if I understand why the companies want to hide it and mislead the public with numbers not relevant to that information.
Because it's a PR. You're a gaming fan on a message board. What's the point of them sharing sales figures and concurrent users data with you? Why do you need them and, more importantly, why should MS give them to you?
Something being relevant and being entitled to something are two different things. :P
Again, I can understand why you might want that information but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it might be relevant to you but you're not entitled to it.
How many games advertise their concurrent players in PR? I know PUBG did when they announced 450 million players. You don't normally hear it though. You normally have to go to third party sources like Steam Spy or sometimes it'll show it inside the game itself on mode selection or whatever (like in Titanfall or Rocket League). It's not a requirement though. It's useful info sure.
It's not misleading or 'hiding' info to say they've had 5 million people play Sea of Thieves. It's literally true. There are about 20 people max in each Sea of Thieves server. You'll be fine if you jump in to play it, don't worry.
The only way I would not be entitled to them is for a F2P game :P
You mean like every game released? Look through trophies on PS4 and see how many people actually even make it to the first trophy on any game. It seems 20% of buyers don't play the game for more than an even a hour if we use that theoretic.
All these games are still considered successes in their own right, right?
Are we comparing a games success by knowing X amount of players have played for X amount of time now? The gold in gymnastics goes to.......................
Yeah, I understand that, it's just that I don't agree when you said players have NO REASON to want concurrent numbers. In a MP focused game, they do.
You can easily find concurrent numbers of all steam games on the official page by the way
https://store.steampowered.com/stats/
And if it's 0.5% then that's even worse!
Xbox really should just close Rare considering how bad these numbers we've just made up are, lol.
I think we've misunderstood each other then. I say message board users have 'no reason to get sales figures or concurrent user numbers'. Not that they have no reason to want them. Devs/publishers don't have to share them with you just because you've bought a product. Crossed wires I guess.
To be honest, I can't imagine Rare working on two GaaS-games at the same time. So I expect a singleplayer (or largely singleplayer) experience from them next.
As i said before numbers isn't matter to me and even How many Copy sold (i'm not Investor so no money for so why i care then)
and yes when GTS share numbers It was impressive numbers coz it sony games.....But when MS share it become a problem for some people here.....
Numbers , Sold copy , revenues and earnings......Doesn't matter to me i'm gamer at the end not Investor
It goes hand in hand.
SoT is currently the highest played game on gamepass, so it has their own merits.
On the other hand we have plenty of data that suggests that Gamepass/play anywhere increase visibility and accessibility of the game, which in turn reflects on more sales/revenue.
We could go on but the main takeway is that Ms strategy is working. And will work even more when they fix the issues with their store, gets the whole xbone library on Pc/mobile (preferably a native option for PC, but streaming would be a great addition already), and more games to support the new features...
You invested in development? Because buying a game isn't 'investing' in it.
This is just terrible.
We know how successful a game like God of War is because sales figures are reported. It gives a clear indicator how well a game is doing.
5 million figures having played the game doesn't tell us how successful a game is doing. We don't look at PS4 trophies and then apply it to a specific PS4 games, we go by looking at a game individually.
Why does it matter to you how successful it is. MS(Phil Spencer and Rare) have said the game was a major success. What more do you need.
English is not my first language, I meant "spend" money. Sorry for the confusion, will edit.
Thanks. French here. I had 2 incredibly strict english teachers in school, that helped lol...
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Your English is definitely really fantastic. I wouldn't have known that you weren't a native speaker!
We know 5 million people either bought the game or played it via Gamepass (roughly). That's just as much a metric for success as the sales of God of War.
We don't know the retention rate of God of War (Doesn't matter that much since it's SP.) And we don't know the retention rate of SoT.
Game sales are irrelevant now. It's more about revenue earned.
So.. you're saying we only know a games success by one figure and that figure is sales figures? Even if 50% of people only played God of War for an hour?
So we'll never know if GTSport is a success or not then I guess. We know its only had 5 million players and not sales. Dam shame.
I would love Rare to use SoT assets and make a single player campaign as a paid expansion. I think it would help a lot to invite more people to the game.
If anyone calls this number anything short of a success, then they're going to be criticized. I didn't come in this thread just to post " I'm not impressed " I came in here because I've seen people attack others for not being impressed with the number. There are things we don't know and it's understandable that people want more information before they call it a huge success.
If this were a "flash in the pan" situation where the game just released, it could make some sense. It's not though. We're about four months out, and the info we have shows ongoing influxes of new players month-to-month. And again, it's not a F2P game; These players reflect either a purchase, or a paid subscription.
You're constructing this premise that players must be immediately dropping the game (without explaining your basis), and presuming users must be heavily using free promo accounts (in a time frame where that would be unlikely), and creating this weird standard that a sale doesn't count if some number of players don't keep playing (which would apply to every game). If you understand why a standalone-only purchase is different from one that can also be part of a subscription, you should understand why your points have been received as so oddball.
The more labored your rationale explaining how seemingly good news must actually be bad, the more likely it'll be criticized by others. That's how things are, and how they should be.
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