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[Draugoth]

The simultaneous release of Helldivers 2 on PlayStation and PC helped make it a huge hit, especially on PC where it hit 458,709 concurrent players two weeks after launch. But that was indeed the peak, and it has declined 90% in four months, down to 44,093 peak concurrent players. As such, it is routinely outside the top 10 list, and is #58 in top sellers on the service. The most-viewed Twitch stream of the game at this moment has 56 viewers.

This is important because this is a live game. This is the type of game that Sony wanted to make an impact and become an ongoing success, not just an initial one. Sony can sell plenty of copies of single player games and it’s fine if the playercount significantly drops off rather quickly once players are finished. But there is no “finishing” Helldivers, which is constantly adding new gear, cosmetics, Major Orders and new fronts of the war. Players most recently have been complaining that higher levels were too punishing to be fun, but after a large-scale buff patch, it barely moved the needle.


Looking at the numbers, there has been no significant surge other than a brief spike when a mass Automaton invasion happened, but interest fell sharply after a week, and since then the game has continued to shed players quickly.

via Forbes

 

[MadchesterManc]

When losing 90% of your concurrent player base still leaves you with one larger than most games

 

[adamsapple]

As it happens with 90% of live service games over time.

Let's see if Concord comes anywhere close to this games initial launch.

 

[Tomi]

People will come back when big patches and big updates start to come
Check Palworld

Thanks
Bye.

 

[Holammer]

Arrowhead failed to calculate how people play the game as HD2 lacks gold sinks, most long time players have maxed out samples & medals and R is just a road bump.
If we could exchange them for weapon skins and other bling it would motivate players more. Being able to prestige in COD games for example is a great way to retain players.

Now you can just grind XP for levels and find the occasional super credits.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The simultaneous release of Helldivers 2 on PlayStation and PC helped make it a huge hit, especially on PC where it hit 458,709 concurrent players two weeks after launch. But that was indeed the peak, and it has declined 90% in four months, down to 44,093 peak concurrent players. As such, it is routinely outside the top 10 list, and is #58 in top sellers on the service. The most-viewed Twitch stream of the game at this moment has 56 viewers.

This is important because this is a live game. This is the type of game that Sony wanted to make an impact and become an ongoing success, not just an initial one. Sony can sell plenty of copies of single player games and it’s fine if the playercount significantly drops off rather quickly once players are finished. But there is no “finishing” Helldivers, which is constantly adding new gear, cosmetics, Major Orders and new fronts of the war. Players most recently have been complaining that higher levels were too punishing to be fun, but after a large-scale buff patch, it barely moved the needle.


Looking at the numbers, there has been no significant surge other than a brief spike when a mass Automaton invasion happened, but interest fell sharply after a week, and since then the game has continued to shed players quickly.

via Forbes

PvE games ALWAYS struggle with player retention. This was expected by literally everyone involved with the game. There's no issue here.

 

[Negotiator101]

 

[ARK1391]

I think people are waiting for the Illuminate update to come out. Once that happens you'll see a big spike again.

Whether or not that spike will sustain, is another question.

 

[Gaiff]

It doesn't seem like the game has offered much in terms of new content. Do they have expansions planned or major content updates?

 

[Fafalada]

As it happens with 90% of live service games over time.

The time-scales matter (Like how long it took WoW to get there - a decade?). This is a pretty rapid decline - unfortunately.

As do the absolute numbers. 50k CCU (if it stays there) is the kind of critical mass that sustains enough revenue to keep most services up for long term - but it's not in the 'big success' category. Eg. many highly successful GaaS games have kept hundreds of thousands (or higher) CCU for years (or even decades) - so HD2 currently isn't the breakout hit it was made out to be (a lot like Palworld before it).
Of course - Steam isn't the benchmark for this - most of the top-performing GaaS examples have/had bulk of their userbase elsewhere than Steam (for those that were even available on Steam to begin with).

 

[Fafalada]

PvE games ALWAYS struggle with player retention. This was expected by literally everyone involved with the game. There's no issue here.

Depends on what their targets were - I've worked on a PvE service in the past that sustained 6x that PCU for at least 5 years - and over half of it came from a single country. But there are no absolute scales here - 50k CCU is in the 10M$/year revenue ballpark- maybe they're fine with that.

 

[Hrk69]

Slow news day?

There is nothing special going on here

Just look at Baldurs Gate 3 and Elden Ring for example

I understand that Helldivers is a live-service game but come on..

 

[M1chl]

MP game gonna MP game

 

[Valedix]

People will come back when big patches and big updates start to come
Check Palworld

Thanks
Bye.

Been trying to get back into Palworld myself.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

out of place gif

Must be tough being a cheerleader for another game with the name Hell in it, heh?

Hrk69

Indeed, but you know. It’s Sunday.

 

[Spyxos]

I played it a lot. Over 100 hours of playtime. They are always trying to bring in new mission types and there are always smaller new things coming in, but I don't play it anymore either. And it still has quite a high player base.

But I'm not sure what they can do either. Sure, the new faction is coming soon, but that won't keep the players for long.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

People will come back when big patches and big updates start to come
Check Palworld

Thanks
Bye.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

It’s a service game. Numbers will drop and go up when there’s new content.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Depends on what their targets were - I've worked on a PvE service in the past that sustained 6x that PCU for at least 5 years - and over half of it came from a single country. But there are no absolute scales here - 50k CCU is in the 10M$/year revenue ballpark- maybe they're fine with that.

I think they're already on record saying it far exceeded expectations. It's already the fastest selling PlayStation Studios game of all time.

 

[Negotiator101]

Must be tough being a cheerleader for another game with the name Hell in it, heh?

Hrk69

Indeed, but you know. It’s Sunday.

The bubble has burst, that's all my friend.

 

[Little Mac]

Great game that I put hundreds of hours into that I had to shelve a few days ago (PS5). I've bought all the war bonds, ship upgrades, stratagems, cosmetics ... literally everything in the game you can buy or unlock... and I'm currently at the currency cap for medals, requisitions, and all type of samples ...

The only thing I can do now is grind for exp for a higher ranking ... which isn't really important to me.

Getting into Ghost of Tsushima now but will return to HD2 when they add more shit to grind for and unlock to the game.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

The bubble has burst, that's all my friend.

There isn’t a bubble. The game is a monumental success. How you found anything to point out other than that is telling.

 

[feynoob]

Man, get a hobby people. 40+k isn't a bad thing.

It's just Sony being shit. The game is still unplayable by the blocked countries.

 

[feynoob]

The bubble has burst, that's all my friend.

They don't care about that.

They got 12m sales. They are happy.

 

[STARSBarry]

So I stopped playing as of the last big update, that's because my performance managed to go down by about 60% prior the game never dropped below 60 FPS, now it often drops to the mid 30's. This has happened in the past but a hot fix or two later resolved, so far this has been the same for a month now. It's not just me too, the issue is that Helldivers are heavily CPU based, so if they make any changes that puts more load on CPU's which where already running at 80+ degrees then this tanks performance at soon as it hits the thermal limits.

 

[darrylgorn]

Needs more gasolina.

 

[xrnzaaas]

People will come back when big patches and big updates start to come
Check Palworld

Thanks
Bye.

Palworld will be a relatively short lived game, replaced by a new phenomenon at some point. Helldivers will definitely live longer, just like the community for the first game didn't die even after a few years.

 

[yurinka]

Keeping around 10% of the active userbase peak 5 months after launch it's a great achievement for a paid game, it's a great user retention that very little amount of (specially non-F2P) games achieve. Only a very small percent of top tier performers are above it.

Some games as reference comparing their CCU 5 months after launch vs their CCU launch peak:

• FIFA 23 around 60%
• Destiny 2 around 40%
• Street Fighter 6 around 27%
• CoD around 20%
• Tekken 8 14%
• GTAV 13 %
• Helldivers II 10%
• The Finals 7%
• Elden Ring 5%
• Suicide Squad 4%
• Mortal Kombat 1 3%
• Starfield 3%
• Halo Infinite 2%
• Cyberpunk 2077 2%
• Palworld 1%

And being a GaaS that's great news because retention is the most important metric, specially D180 (average percent of players who keep playing 180 days after they first played the game, not related to/different metric than CCU).

It doesn't seem like the game has offered much in terms of new content. Do they have expansions planned or major content updates?

According to the former Arrowhead CEO the game was way more successful than they expected, so changed their post launch plans to make them more ambitious and started hiring.

As of now, they released the warbonds they had planned since the start, plus some extra stuff from time to time like some new mission types, some new biome, some new statagem, mechs, etc. In addition to the typical fixes and rebalance patches. In fact they added a ton of updates and stuff.

I assume that what they released until now it is what they had planned before launch, and that they need time to rework their post-launch plans, budgeting them, make the hirings and training needed, design, develop and test everything properly. To make let's say, a big yearly expansion on top of the normal stuff added frequently.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

they said they wanted to take more time between updates, if the next update doesn't increase the players, it will be officially over. but I bet its already a financial success.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

The simultaneous release of Helldivers 2 on PlayStation and PC helped make it a huge hit, especially on PC where it hit 458,709 concurrent players two weeks after launch. But that was indeed the peak, and it has declined 90% in four months, down to 44,093 peak concurrent players. As such, it is routinely outside the top 10 list, and is #58 in top sellers on the service. The most-viewed Twitch stream of the game at this moment has 56 viewers.

This is important because this is a live game. This is the type of game that Sony wanted to make an impact and become an ongoing success, not just an initial one. Sony can sell plenty of copies of single player games and it’s fine if the playercount significantly drops off rather quickly once players are finished. But there is no “finishing” Helldivers, which is constantly adding new gear, cosmetics, Major Orders and new fronts of the war. Players most recently have been complaining that higher levels were too punishing to be fun, but after a large-scale buff patch, it barely moved the needle.


Looking at the numbers, there has been no significant surge other than a brief spike when a mass Automaton invasion happened, but interest fell sharply after a week, and since then the game has continued to shed players quickly.

via Forbes

I’m not surprised at all. I made a thread about this game a few months ago, the viewership on Twitch was also ridiculously bad; Let me pull up my receipts.

You had posters in that thread trying to downplay those numbers, in retrospect those numbers actually matter.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

The bubble has burst, that's all my friend.

You're really triggered by this game's success, aren't you?

 

[Negotiator101]

They don't care about that.

They got 12m sales. They are happy.

ok

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Well, that's understandable. The question is that what kinda of support the game will receive going forward? Big events? Or just small events?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I’m not surprised at all. I made a thread about this game a few months ago, the viewership on Twitch was also ridiculously bad; Let me pull up my receipts.

You had posters in that thread trying to downplay those numbers, in retrospect those numbers actually matter.

They don't.

Chess.com is a hugely popular website. Twitch is grossly overvalued by many.

 

[LazyParrot]

Those numbers aren't bad at all, especially considering it isn't F2P.

 

[HL3.exe]

Hottake: I think this is fine and normal. Not everything needs to be a 'forever game'. It's a battle for player retention and only a handful of games can be in this race, slots are limited and already taken up by the big ones: Minecraft, CoD, fortnite, Roblox, Counter Strike, Pubg, GTA5, etc.

It unhealthy for the industry if all big companies chase the 'forever game' and try to break in. Just scope and budget your project right, and expect a general life time of a year or 2 and move on to the next project. Its healthy against design stagnation (which already happened)

 

[Griffon]

Again, another thread of morons misunderstanding how Steam CCU work.

44k after launch is fucking huge.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

It was bound to happen.

How long can you grind for a battle pass??

I play these games for 50-100 hrs then quit for good.

Unless they have VERY ambitious plans, like forge in Halo Infinite or something of that scale, it wont go back to launch numbers.

 

[Xyphie]

A PvE-only online game of this limited scope was never going to be able to grow in audience over time, there's simply not enough content/complexity in the game to keep player engagement over time. There will of course be expansions and such that brings players back but those bumps will be temporary. Fairgame$ will have a similar kind of cycle if it's just a co-op heist-type game (Payday clone).

You need content which is infinitely scalable for players to grow over time like PvP, creation (Roblox/Minecraft/Fortnite etc), social aspects (MMOs).

 

[feynoob]

ok

Weakling. You need to say it like a boss.

 

[Varteras]

Give me new enemies to fight and I'm going back in.

 

[poppabk]

This is normal - Gaas requires the 'service' part, without constant content updates people will drop off as they get their fill of the current content.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Arrowhead failed to calculate how people play the game as HD2 lacks gold sinks, most long time players have maxed out samples & medals and R is just a road bump.
If we could exchange them for weapon skins and other bling it would motivate players more. Being able to prestige in COD games for example is a great way to retain players.

Now you can just grind XP for levels and find the occasional super credits.

That's the thing people forget:
They praise HD2 for their approach to the live service model, but it's the very thing that is leading to people moving onto something else.

 

[Neolombax]

If I'm being honest, there isnt much content in HD2 to begin with. Even with the updates, there isnt really much. 2 enemy factions, same few planetary objectives, occasional new enemy unit, new strategems added over time, new weapons+ armor are the only paid content. Not saying its a bad game mind you, the hype that carried the game initially were the moment to moment gameplay which were bound to dry up as the occasionally added content cannot keep up the momentum. I still play the game from time to time though.

If youre really comparing the time investment vs obtainables, arguably MW3 offers more as a live service i.e you unlock weapon decals, calling cards, maps, modes, operator skins, weapons, etc....for free.

 

[CityHunter1981]

I think it’s normal and also a good thing. Just imagine that the game would stay this successful. Sony would cancel all the remaining single player games and go all in…

 

[Varteras]

Arrowhead failed to calculate how people play the game as HD2 lacks gold sinks, most long time players have maxed out samples & medals and R is just a road bump.
If we could exchange them for weapon skins and other bling it would motivate players more. Being able to prestige in COD games for example is a great way to retain players.

Now you can just grind XP for levels and find the occasional super credits.

That's the thing people forget:
They praise HD2 for their approach to the live service model, but it's the very thing that is leading to people moving onto something else.

This. The game had a fantastic initial draw because of its moment-to-moment gameplay and its low level of monetization. But, and I think as a consequence of not expecting people to love it as much as they did, they had no big long-term plan in place. So honestly, the game barely registers as live service and more like a rather traditional multiplayer experience in some ways. Where the game is really only going to have a huge player base for the first few months. Because they had no plan to keep a large number of people playing regularly. They can possibly reignite some interest in the game by introducing big additions to the game that focus on that long-term hook. But they have a lot of work to do and will have to cross their fingers that it lands. If nothing else, just keeping a dedicated base that continues to play and spend money will do them just fine after selling over 12 million copies. The game made a lot of money and went beyond anyone's expectations. No doubt about that.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

This. The game had a fantastic initial draw because of its moment-to-moment gameplay and its low level of monetization. But, and I think as a consequence of not expecting people to love it as much as they did, they had no big long-term plan in place. So honestly, the game barely registers as live service and more like a rather traditional multiplayer experience in some ways. Where the game is really only going to have a huge player base for the first few months. Because they had no plan to keep a large number of people playing regularly. They can possibly reignite some interest in the game by introducing big additions to the game that focus on that long-term hook. But they have a lot of work to do and will have to cross their fingers that it lands. If nothing else, just keeping a dedicated base that continues to play and spend money will do them just fine after selling over 12 million copies. The game made a lot of money and went beyond anyone's expectations. No doubt about that.

Tbf though, Warframe had a worse start than HD2.
It took years to get it to the point where it is now (or at least to where it became popular, not sure active itnis today).

Will be interesting to see what AH will do going forward and how the game will be when the other factions are all finally introduced.

Also, they should embrace collaborations and start with a Killzone pack.

 

[Varteras]

Tbf though, Warframe had a worse start than HD2.
It took years to get it to the point where it is now (or at least to where it became popular, not sure active itnis today).

Will be interesting to see what AH will do going forward and how the game will be when the other factions are all finally introduced.

Also, they should embrace collaborations and start with a Killzone pack.

A Killzone collab would make so many people shit themselves

 

[Mownoc]

Yes, that's how most video games work.

 

[Topher]

A 24 hour peak of 45k is still damn good numbers. It's almost like this article was written by Forb.....