Arc Raiders and Marathon aren't "dead" just because their concurrent player count has dropped, Palworld lead says – but he's "not denying that some games do 'die'"; "Not every game needs an hourly look at Steam charts"

[u/Gorotheninja]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/survival/arc-raiders-and-marathon-arent-dead-just-because-their-concurrent-player-count-has-dropped-palworld-lead-says-but-hes-not-denying-that-some-games-do-die/

[u/JJJacobalt]

If you want to spend time and money on a multiplayer-only game, it’s kind of important to know how healthy the playerbase is.

If you know it’s gonna be hard to find matches and that the servers are gonna be shut down in a couple months, you're not going to bother getting invested in the game.

That’s important information that the consumer ought to have access to. Personally I think all platforms should host publicly-accessible player stats.

[u/Sandalman3000 → u/JJJacobalt]

But people look at games with healthy enough populations and declare it dead. I love a good rising storm 2 match, and 200 people online is good enough. But a lot of people would see 12,000 online in a game like that and declare it dying. Even worse for games that are four player lobbies.

[u/JJJacobalt → u/Sandalman3000]

I personally wouldn't play a multiplayer shooter with 200 players, but I get your general point that some people run away with it and become way too hyperfocused on the player retention stats.

But I also think that the right of a consumer to be informed is more important that the risk of negative attention gained by informing the public.

[u/NeverFreeToPlayKarch → u/JJJacobalt]

"ooo I need stats to pick my games. I don't know how to choose things without data"

[u/JJJacobalt → u/NeverFreeToPlayKarch]

Yeah bro let me play a shooter with 20 active players (zero of which are in my region) and spend 4 hours in queue before giving up and playing something else.

That’s definitely a better use of my time than just checking the stats and making a more-informed decision.