The free skateboard MMO Skate. was very popular among players on Steam over the weekend. However, anyone who started the game had to first queue up.
What kind of game is this? The new Skate. is a free skateboard MMO on Steam and console. The spiritual successor to Skate 3 comes from EA and brings back the nostalgic skateboarding fun in a new form.
However, the game differs in its form from previous Skate titles. The world is very designed for skating, including ramps and grind spots even on skyscrapers. However, the multiplayer aspect is fundamentally different from the predecessors.
The game is not only an “Always-Online” product, but also an MMO, where you share the game world with other skaters and can develop cool lines together with them. Fitting for the MMO, the game is continuously being developed, yet it is still in Early Access. However, the multiplayer aspect caused more frustration than benefit over the weekend.
Here you can watch the trailer for Skate.:
From “Always-On” to “Always-Queue”
How did the game perform over the weekend? After Skate. was released at the beginning of last week, it attracted more players every day. However, over the weekend, the numbers peaked at over 134,000 players just on Steam (via SteamDB).
Many gamers were also active on consoles, trying to visit the virtual skate park, so many that an absurdly long queue formed. On Sunday evening, when Skate. reached its player peak on Steam, several users posted increasingly higher queue positions on Reddit.
The queue for Reddit user seasNgtings was already at 43,336 players. However, the peak position was likely reached by Reddit user Panderstar a few hours later, who had to queue at position 179,324.
How do players feel about the queues? Players have increasingly expressed their annoyance about the queues on Reddit. They criticize the “Always-Online” mode of the game. They find it incomprehensible why the developers did not create a stripped-down offline version so that the almost 180,000 players in the queue could play, even when the servers are full.
They suggested providing a small skate hall where skaters could practice before loading onto the servers and into the world of San Vansterdam.
What do the developers say about the problem? On X.com, the developers of Skate. recently addressed the issues. On the evening of September 19, they wrote:
The weekend is approaching and San Vansterdam is still filled with many more skaters than we anticipated! We are currently increasing server capacity, but please be aware that there may still be wait times when logging in this weekend. Thank you for sticking with us during the early access phase. We greatly appreciate your patience and support!
The developers are working on providing more servers to meet the surge of many players. Whether the situation will improve soon or whether even more players will get interested and overload the new servers remains to be seen.
While players explore San Vansterdam or watch the queue dissolve, developers continuously work on the game. A significant bug was quickly fixed, which previously prevented many players from progressing: The new patch resolves the biggest problem of Skate., instantly boosts ratings on Steam by 10%
