What happened to our playerbase?

I'm not sure how to respond to this, you're mostly just giving me excuses as to why you can't compare these games. These are other games in Early Access, by any measure of success, their programs have been much more successful than Starbound's. They're better reviewed, they have a higher percentage of their base population playing on a regular basis and they don't have nearly the same problem Starbound has with unsatisfied customers.

I think you're being disingenuous by saying a 96.5% drop in player base on a game in early access is normal. It's not, at least for Early Access games that are doing a good job of keeping their customers happy.

 

Well there's quite a lot of people who just don't buy early access games and are waiting for the full release. The player base is going to get bigger.
Remember minecraft? Whenever an update was about to go up pepole would stop playing and wait for the mods they used to play with. That's the exact same thing but the times are longer and starbound actually adds something to the updates.

 

Comparing a purely online multiplayer game's life expectancy to a primarily single player one is insane. For many reasons that should be obvious.

That only leaves Kerbal and Space Engineers.

Space Engineers lost 90% of their playerbase in the first four months and then gained them back after about 8. Like I said, I don't care to look up why this happened, large update, lots of publicity, whatever. It doesn't matter.

What matters is that in the four months during which there was not massive updates, it lost 90% of its playerbase.

Which is the expected cycle.

Kerbal, on the other hand, we don't KNOW how much of its player base it lost or maintained because its actual release was not on Steam. All we know is that it spikes to similar to peak levels every time it's advertised or put on sale. Which, again, is to be expected when you've never seen the actual release peak.

I don't know how to make that any easier for you.

 

First off, as far as I can see Space Engineer's player population has only gone up over time, so I'm not seeing how what you're saying is true. Peak players in December 2013 - 1241, Peak players in Fed 2014 - 4474, Peak Players in May 2014 - 7978, Peak Players in June 2014 13,819.

Ooooookay.

How about Arma 3, are you going to come up any reason that StarBound can't be compared to Arma 3? Its got single player, it has multiplayer, it was released on Early Acess, and it never had near the drop in players that Starbound had. How about Don't Starve? The Forest? Goat Simulator?

All of these games, every single one has a much better percentage of their initial population than Starbound does, and never at any point suffered from anything close to a 96.25% drop in their player base.

 

Goat Simulator is just a comedy game, no one is going to leave a crazy comedy game like that.

 

I really want "Explaining away why a 96.25% percent drop in the player base and coming up with reasons its totally normal" to be the new popular Starbound forum game.

It seems like a lot of fun, gives you a chance to really be creative.

Kudos everything, I have to get some sleep.

 

My bad, I was thinking http://steamcharts.com/app/237870#All Planet explorers from your earlier post.

 

I would like "Explaining why other people's opinion can change how much you enjoy the game" to be a new forum game. Would you like to be the first contestant?

 

I'm glad to see you're still participating in the long running game of "Shake the bee-hive and run away".

 

Also:

Arma HAS Singleplayer but it's primarily multi.

Don't Starve never had a release peak, but it lost 90% of its players in the last month (peaked at 10k, is at 1k)

The Forest has been out for under 4 months and is already showing the 4 month cycle from its initial peak.

Goat Simulator went from over 10k players to 700 players over the course of April.

 

Holy crap, facts supporting an opinion!

This argument has been rehashed before, content patches tend to bring back players. This is seen in a lot of places, not just EAcc games.

 

Since our favorite beeshaker went to sleep, I'll do my best to act in his stead.

Arma clearly has both single and multi, therefore it is very comparable to Starbound, and exists solely to prove that not every single Early Access game goes through peaks and changes in playerbase. Because not every single Early Access game goes through peaks and changes, Starbound is failing because it is.

Don't Starve only lost 90% of its playerbase, and I specifically asked which Early Access games have lost more than 96.25% of the playerbase. 90% is not close enough, because we need exact calculations for our scientific comparison.

Same thing with Goat Simulator. 700 players vs 10,000 players is only a 93% loss of playerbase, and nowhere near the 96.25% I quoted you.

The Forest, you don't bring up any specific numbers, therefore this evidence is not allowed in the court of biased opinion. Try harder.


Did I do it right?

 

You forgot to mention "Fast and Thick" in your argument, that's a 50 dkp minus.

 

I'm glad you guys find mocking other members while they are away entertaining, it really helps this community grow...

As far as his argument, you can't argue numbers, sorry. And you're right, 90% is in fact not 96%. 6% is a lot. The argument is loss of player base, not failing of a game. "Starbound has failed" was never mentioned. He was merely pointing out that Starbound has lost more of its player base than those other games. That is a statistical fact based on the charts provided. Statistical data is not "evidence in a court of biased opinion," it's factual data.

 

Looks like you know game better than Devs...

 

The point isn't the actual numbers, it's the trend they represent. Games that go Early Access tend to have spikes in their player base until they go full release. The ebbs and flows of a player base is highly dependent on content and at the moment SB doesn't have a whole ton of fresh content.

EDIT: Also on the mocking him thing; Does his repeating the same stagnant opinions and spewing bitterness help the community? Look through his post history and see if you can find one positive thing he's said.

 

I was one of the people that stopped playing around february when the unstable opened and there was talk of delays from moving into the office.

To be honest, I thought febuary was also the last update since they stopped changing version names, and had literally just been checking in occasionally, waiting for a new version to come out. I only learned that some of the unstable updates had been pushed to stable recently. >_>

Fact is, not that much new or interesting has been added in the past six months. Talk of all the upcoming features makes everything seem new and exciting, but ultimately it's not a reason to play the current stable build of the game which contains none of the talked-about features.

Also, I have to admit, I'm one of those Early Access players who aren't looking to beta-test much if at all, I just wanted to play and see the progress of the game as it develops. Unstable/nightly holds no value for me at all, because they're not in a "playable" state. The unfinished, buggy features and potential loss of data/progress is a huge turnoff.

When Starbound comes out with another stable update, I bet you'll see those numbers skyrocket again. Maybe not to a new peak all at once, but it'll get somewhere. Of course, that's assuming that at least a fair number of EAcc players see it the way I do.

 

1) Satire. It's a form of humor.


Moving on, do you know why people find statistics to be misleading or "false"? Because there are statistics that can imply support of any conclusion. Take the example of Goat Simulator that krylo provided. You could say "They lost 93% of their playerbase! This is a disturbing trend!" Or you could say "Goat Simulator's player loss is only 10% of the player loss that Terraria encountered, so this is an incredible success!"

Are both factual conclusions from the evidence? Sure, but they paint very different pictures. You cannot use a single statistic to fully explain a complex situation, it just doesn't work. You have to use multiple statistics and look from different angles, because each one only sheds a single point of light into a dark room.

Also, in terms of %, when you're talking the difference between 90 and 96, that's not a big deal. The number it represents (6000 players or 600 players) can be a big deal, but you're talking about peanuts. Even in grade school, 90% is an A-, and 96% is an A. That's not nearly the difference between a B and an A that people seem to be making it out to be. If you're talking about a 6% difference between 1% and 7%, that's big, but not between 90 and 96.

The reason I personally think Hefeweizen is looking at this way too in-depth, is simply because he's looking for numbers that support a specific argument. I think it's a waste of time, because the argument he's looking to support is meaningless. Who cares if other people enjoy Starbound? I'm here because I enjoy Starbound the game and the Early Access experience / forum soap opera. If 10 people or 10,000 people also like what I like, it doesn't change what I like.

There's also no point in saying that the game is in a troubled state, or whatever he was attempting to say by his statistics. The game is unfinished. When it is finished and released, then we can see if it was "a success" by whatever metric you feel like using (profit, copies sold, sales intake vs expected intake, EBIT, whatever). At the end of the day, though, I personally think it comes down to "Do you enjoy the game?" And I also think Hefeweizen can't see the forest for the trees.

 

Theres a lot wrong with your whole reply, particularly that you come across as a fanatical suporter, and quite agressive.

I will only clarify one thing out of all the wrong things, because its the most easy to adress issue that can help you understand other peoples perspective.

Im not saying that people would purposely avoid the game to somehow boycot the game, its ridiculous that you even come up with this concept. People leave the game, and then they forget it exists, move on to the next game, or next genre of games, etc.
It is unwise not to capitalize all the potential player retention, by letting down the bulk of players, like myself, who are not interested in the personal life of the developers, and judge a game for what it actually offers (as opossed to the potential), and judge a studio based on their capacity of acomplishing what is promised.

I am not in anger, I am not "leaving" the game, on the contrary, I enjoy it very much, and I am slowly recruiting a nice group of friends to play it with me.

But it is disengenuos to say that CF behaviour is exemplary, that promises werent broken, and that updating the stable version more often would go a great way with player retention.

 

Fanatical and Agressive?
Im afraid you should look into another corner for those "qualities",cause I do not posses them,im afraid.
Actualy,im quite curious,how was I "agressive?

I see errors,and the implications of the errors.
And I can see the good implications of the errors.

Does not mean I refute all of your claims,mind you,Chuckle has broken promisses, and you have your right to be mad,yet I think what would have hapened if they had acomplished them and now and in the future,as they were broken.

And I prefer the present,and the Future.
A positive view of the potential created by the abandonement of the previous restrictions.

Call this perspective wrong,if you will,time will tell.

Players go away after a while without updates,why should Chuckle focus on making them stay?
As of now,we are a Beta of a E.A. game,and yet having about 1k people at all times is already nice,but lack of updates makes normal players go away,they will come back when the update hits,whats the hard part o figure out?

I have never said you were gonna say to all yer friends to abandon the game or anything!
Why would I?And why did you assume that?
Personal life of the Devs?Where did you get this?

Judging a game by its curent value is fine,and I ahve nothing against it.
I also like to capitalize its potential,but,agree to disagree.

I never said you were angry,though you though I was.
Huh,interesting.

CF hasnt been perfect,but many dont realy care,Promisses were broken,but in my eyes,they lead to much better results,and obviously,a update would be kickass for player activity.

Whas yer point?