In games like Palworld, there is an ongoing discussion about player numbers on Steam: They were huge at launch, then fell off, and are now rising again with the update, 6 months after release. However, the community manager of Palworld asks players not to engage in this discussion.
This is what the community manager says: The community manager Bucky from Palworld asks fans on Twitter:
- They should stop getting involved in discussions about player numbers and trying to defend Palworld. While that’s sweet, it’s a waste of time.
- The posts are just meant to lure people into reacting to them – and from these articles, the media will do what their job is: writing articles.
Palworld had 2 million, then 15,000, now it’s 140,000 … that’s no reason to get upset. In a few weeks, the number of players will drop again, and with the next big update, it will rise again. That’s just how it works.
Palworld could literally have 1 person playing it, and that won’t change the fact that YOU have played a fun game and have fun memories of it.
Palworld looks particularly bad in discussions about player numbers on Steam
Is he right? Partly. It is normal for live service games like Palworld to have a significant spike upwards or downwards in player numbers.
However, these player numbers on Steam have a certain significance:
- A game generally has the most players at launch, and after about 6 weeks, a drop in player numbers, even a severe drop, is quite normal: People have reached the max level, and they play less or not at all.
- However, there are some games that offer particularly much content, like Baldur’s Gate 3 or games that rely heavily on live service, which can keep this drop in player numbers relatively low for months.
- It can also happen that a game, like Baldur’s Gate 3, increases its player numbers significantly again after a few months – a sign that it is experiencing a resurgence.
Player numbers already indicate a trend
What can one read from player numbers on Steam? Therefore, player numbers on Steam indicate a trend and provide a certain statement about the quality of a game and what motivation it offers. This is a basis for discussion:
- Helldivers 2 has maintained its player base well in the first months after release and “only” lost about 50% of its players in the 2nd month after release: they dropped from an average of 274,304 in February 2024 to 142,853.
- Palworld, on the other hand, fell from 1.146 million players at launch in January 2024 to 83,497 in March 2024.
- Baldur’s Gate 3 fell from 450,962 at launch in August 2023 to 481,108 in August 2023, but had even risen back to 160,228 in January.
This shows that games provide different levels of motivation and are developed differently.
In Palworld, the drop is particularly stark: No game on Steam has lost more players in such a short time as Palworld after its release.
It is a sign that Palworld, with its premise of “Pokémon with guns”, attracted many players but could not retain them for long. Palworld simply lacked substance – and the player numbers say exactly that.
While almost all successful games look poor in Steam player numbers after release, Palworld looks particularly bad. Therefore, it is understandable that the community manager wants to downplay this discussion somewhat.
Player numbers shouldn’t be interpreted too drastically
This is the problem with discussions about player numbers However, threads like “Palworld loses 90%” of its players or “Palworld’s player numbers rise by 800%” sound much more dramatic than they actually are because they describe normal occurrences in a game:
- Player numbers are dynamic expressions of the state of a game at any given moment
- However, it is not an indication of whether a game is “dead” or a “flop”
Player numbers can also create a false picture, as many believe that the MMORPG “New World” is a flop because it lost a dramatic number of players after release, whereas the “Buy2Play” game was actually much more popular at launch than anyone had assumed and reached many players outside the MMORPG niche, which it then couldn’t retain:
- Amazon had to massively open new servers in the case of New World
- But then had to massively close those servers again when player numbers went down
- Because of the enormous initial success, the impression paradoxically arose that the game had flopped
Palworld is also the case of a game that was bigger at launch than it should have been. The balloon was thus massively inflated and then popped loudly.
Such games are not flops: A flop is when a game fails to interest anyone at launch and quietly fades away.
The players you lose later have still bought the game
The developer is right when he says that player numbers should have nothing to do with a player’s personal enjoyment – unless an MMO enters the death zone where there aren’t enough players to form a group.
If you want to read why Palworld has so many more players again in June 2024, we recommend this article: “Excitement is an understatement” – Why it’s worth playing Palworld again 6 months after release
