2018 has brought flops for some games and game developers. Valve was also affected. Artifact, the Dota card game, was supposed to be the next big hit. However, the numbers look anything but rosy.
What happened? On November 28, 2018, Artifact was released on Steam. The pay-to-play card game has since almost continuously lost players. At the beginning of 2019, the game is not even in the top 70 of the most played games on Steam anymore. (Currently ranked 76, as of January 3, 2018, 3:25 PM, via Steam)
Artifact is steadily losing players
What is the reason? On Reddit, the topic of Artifact and the declining player numbers has been widely discussed. The community finds numerous reasons why Artifact apparently failed.
One of the most frequently mentioned reasons is the poor marketing, monetization, and competition. Artifact was barely advertised in advance and rarely appeared in the press. There was little information to excite players. Only a few controversies caused a stir.
In addition, Artifact is pay-to-play. It costs nearly €18 and also requires purchases of booster packs and tickets if one does not want to win right away. The system of purchasable cards via the Steam Marketplace sounded interesting to many but turned out to be rather unpopular. Especially after the most popular card cost more than the game itself.
The purchase price itself also disappointed many players. Competitors like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena are free to play and provide insight without having to pay. Players can only get an idea of Artifact if they pay.
This is how the trend looks: Artifact started in November 2018 with over 60,000 simultaneous players. However, this is also the peak it has ever reached. Since then, Artifact has lost about 90% of its players.
Until December 21, the player numbers steadily declined. On that day, a new patch was released that introduced a kind of ranking system. Such a feature was frequently requested, but it simply came too late for many players.
The patch briefly raised the numbers again, but since then they have also steadily declined. In the past 30 days, Artifact has averaged 8,653 players.
Whether Artifact will recover remains to be seen. With Valve, a huge corporation stands behind the game, which can afford streamers or highly rewarded tournaments if necessary, so at least possibilities are open for Artifact. Whether the interest still exists remains to be seen.
A fate like this has long been predicted for the game by Cortyn. Cortyn believed before the release that Artifact would fail.
