Dead by Daylight has more than 100,000 concurrent players on Steam. A record – and a feat that took a long time to achieve.
Nowadays, many games are very short-lived. There is a big hype at launch, but after 2 to 3 months, the player count has drastically decreased. Only a few games manage to continue to engage more players over months and years – one such game is Dead by Daylight.
What happened? A few days ago, Dead by Daylight reached its current peak of concurrent players on Steam. A whopping 105,052 players were engaged in the Steam version simultaneously, trying to kill each other or prevent that. With this, Dead by Daylight has broken the magical barrier of 100,000 players for the first time.
In fact, there were likely many more players, as Dead by Daylight features crossplay and player numbers on PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch are not known. Only the numbers on Steam are visible.
Why has the limit been exceeded now? The fact that more than 100,000 killers and survivors are playing the Steam version of Dead by Daylight is likely due to two main factors:
- Dead by Daylight released the “Resident Evil” chapter, which attracted fans of this franchise
- Dead by Daylight is celebrating its 5th anniversary with a ton of bonus Bloodpoints, which also attract veterans
What is the secret of Dead by Daylight’s success?
The long-term success of Dead by Daylight cannot be attributed to a single reason. There are many factors that have contributed – not all of them are related to the game itself, but also to what is going on outside of the game.
The simple gameplay: Everyone understands the basic principle of Dead by Daylight within seconds, as everyone is familiar with horror movies. Four survivors have to flee from an overpowering killer. The excitement of rooting for the survivors desperately clinging to life is just as enticing as the sadistic curiosity about the next brutal splatter murder with blood fountains.
Both are offered by Dead by Daylight, as killers and survivors effectively play two different games that cover many areas of interest.
Quasi monopoly position: Dead by Daylight effectively runs without real competition. Although there are and have been other asymmetrical games, such as Evolve or Friday the 13th the Game, most of them have faded away. Only Dead by Daylight has managed to maintain a firm grip on the market and appeal to more and more horror fans over the years.
While there are alternatives, they lack certain details that define Dead by Daylight.
Strong licenses: A second point is the strong licenses that Behaviour has acquired. Most of the biggest horror and creepy franchises are now represented in the game, including:
- Halloween
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- SAW
- Ghost Face (Scream)
- Stranger Things
- Silent Hill
- Resident Evil
Along with really solid original creations, Dead by Daylight stands strong with its now 24 killers. This is almost impregnable for other games.
Good suitability for streams: In a stream a few weeks ago, the developers mentioned another detail that they noticed early on. Even during the first playtests of the internal alpha, it became clear that Dead by Daylight is perfect for viewers. Whether watching the killer or the survivors – it is entertaining, exciting, and in many cases educational (for one’s own gameplay).
The developers utilized this knowledge and created various partner programs with streamers. These “Fog Whisperers” provide further promotion for the game, often receive codes for giveaways, or sometimes even get exclusive information that they can share with players first.
Acceptance of all community creations: A large fandom has developed around Dead by Daylight – with all the strange manifestations that are part of the internet.
But while other developers turn away when players create nasty memes from their characters, write fan-fictions, or create some erotic fan art, the developers also participate. They repeatedly hint that they are aware of all these things and that they are fundamentally pleased with the passion their community invests in all of this.
There is criticism and sometimes loud
Despite this nice record, not everything in Dead by Daylight is “in order”. In the community on reddit, there has been some turmoil for a while, as many players are dissatisfied with the patch policy of the developer Behaviour. There are repeatedly numerous bugs and problems with new characters that are often only fixed months later.
Because this happened over and over again, players recently called for a purchase boycott. Players should continue to play Dead by Daylight, but stop spending real money on in-game purchases to teach the developers a lesson.
At least the part about “continuing to play” seems to have worked. We can only speculate about the rest.
