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LawBreakers' peak concurrent Steam playerbase dropped to 431 today [Up2: Down to 302]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
I could be wrong on this, but my guess is that you can't just do a free weekend on Steam (or probably PSN/Xbox Live), it's something that has to be scheduled well ahead of time. I doubt Valve just lets anyone do weekend sales/free weekends whenever they want.
Going F2P would probably help the player base a little bit, but honestly how long do you think it would be until it died down again? There are so many free or cheap shooters on Steam like CSGO, TF2 and Paladins with big user bases that it will probably be hard for this game to find an audience. There just may not be anything that can be done for this game, sometimes you just make a product that the market rejects for whatever reason.
Weapons on map is typically a key component of arena shooters - with the objective being controlling areas within the arena, using a standard set off spawn weapons, in order to secure advantages. Gunskill with standard weapons, and expertise of standard movement mechanics are pushed to the forefront.
Simply getting rid of pickups doesnt change it from being an arena shooter because you still have all players with the same weapons and abilities fighting to control key areas. Having no pickups AND players spawning with different weapons moves it away from Arena.
In class based shooters - players spawn with set advantagesand disadvantages and success revolves around exploiting the former and mitigating the latter. Gunskill often takes a backseat to fulfilling a role using unique characteristics.
Lawbreakers utilizes some design philosophies from both genres - and really isn't more of one than the other. The difference between classes/roles is extremely minor, yet the non- standardized loadouts creates a gunskill and movement dynamic that isn't quite arena-like
This is why i dont understand the overwatch comparisons or even why cliffy was so frequently tasked by interviewers with differentiating his game. It doesn't really play like anything else. When the only real similarity is that you choose a character, the comparison is shallow.
What an ignorant comment
Shifty
Member
Cliffy B bursts out of a nearby giant cake and starts shouting about $60 multiplayer only bullshit.
Then the game goes F2P.
Toothbrush
Member
It's a real shame to see such ignorant comments.
spindoctor
Member
I don't understand posts like this. Whose face is this being "rubbed into"? Why do you think there is some negative intent behind this? The low player count is unfortunate but it's also the cold, hard truth. The truth is not negativity.
Valve asks developers not to discount a game for at least a month after whatever launch promotion they had. And you're right, you can't just set up a free weekend at the drop of a hat. It needs to be set up with Valve and they might have different games taking up the slot for particular weekends. And finally, the most important thing is that the game has to be ready for it. Lawbreakers is having a severe player retention problem so they should figure out a way to fix that or an influx of players (free weekend or free to play) will eventually suffer the same fate.
The game already has lootboxes so one thing they could consider is making their items steam market compatible. Just the idea that one can get a lootbox every time they level up and sell it or the item inside it in the market can attract people to the game. Perhaps not the ideal motivation but if it works then it's worth considering.
Messofanego
Banned
Seth Enosh
Member
PS+ titles are probably negotiated too far in advance for this to be possible for September.
Obliterator
Member
This is unfortunate as I feel really bad for Cliff, always been a fan of him in the industry. But yeah it just always felt like there wasn't much demand / desire for this product for a while
Glass Rebel
Member
So, do they go with their original plan of making it F2P or do they cut their losses and abandon it?
jim2point0
Banned
Welp. Not sure what will save the game other than free access. They have to entice people away from whatever they are currently playing that they did pay for, and there are a lot of good online shooters at the moment.
SENPAIatLARGE
Banned
Link?
brunomartynhak
Member
We might comprise a small percentage of players around, but just maybe we should stop beating a dying horse. You know, this can help trigger a snowball effect: people won't by because there not enough people, we keep repeating here that playerbase is small and so on.
The game is fun, skill ceiling is high, not noob friendly, design is meh. This is the type of thing we should discuss here imho.
The game is fun, skill ceiling is high, not noob friendly, design is meh. This is the type of thing we should discuss here imho.
They are not discussing it at their peril then. The longer they wait the worse it will be for them when they finally accept F2P as the only way of even partially salvaging this game at all.
Gold_Loot
Member
As great as this game is, I would say the game is not yet ready for F2P. They need to have proper tutorials in place, and maybe have a beginner/practice mode in place.
Sure, going F2P will get a bunch of people to check the game out. But once they get destroyed after a few matches, they'll shelf it and forget about it.
Ah yeah that's true. They need an actual tutorial that isn't just links to the LawBreakers Youtube page as well as maybe a Beginner's Playlist where newbies can practice without getting eaten by the 302 wolves.
If the game was salvagable through F2P and became successful, they could later announce that people who paid for the title could have some amount of money back in in-game currency over the life of the title. X credits every Y weeks or something.
At the very least they could offer some exclusive in-game items that wouldn't ever be sold or available to other players.
EDIT - And, cynically, the number of players seem so low that you could almost have a kickstarter-style 'founders' monument' that's displayed when games are loading showing player's Steam names (if they opt in).
I'm not sure this would even be practical, but perhaps they could tuck 'statues' into levels that show a founder's name and their most used character. This could also be an option you might unlock in a paid lootcrate (though the chance to appear has a limited time to work).
I...I feel like I should be quoting Oppenheimer.
Gold_Loot
Member
Right! Maybe get the player to run through a bot match or two to get warmed into it. Also get a small payment option going. 10 bucks gets you a few avatar icons and skins, and a small XP boost. Show a road map for free heros and a few maps coming soon. Do a few twitch promotional tournies and you're in your way.
Nydius
Member
Perhaps. However, on PC there's supposedly ~70K unique owners and yet barely 300 of them bother playing. If even a quarter of the reported unique owners played regularly, this thread wouldn't exist and the game would be thriving.
The fact that so many people own the game but can't be bothered to play seems to indicate there's more of a problem than simple negative word of mouth or player count concern trolling. Either that or someone is fudging the sales numbers somewhere along the line.
TheSpoiler
Member
Besides this self-fart sniffing commentary, maybe sometimes a game needs to market itself better and thereby is at fault if it doesn't?
xrnzaaas
Member
Yes the player count is the truth but what is the purpose of updating the title and the thread on a daily basis? 450, 300...it still is a dreadful number and doesn't change the current state of the game. I can only see two reasons that wouldn't display bad intent - either someone really likes numbers or wants their thread bumped more often.
Because the peak playerbase is the subject of the thread and it sliding down further is relevant news?
Eeeh, you think it's the same 300 people playing 24/7? Concurrent means playing at the same time. So ofcourse there's more than 300 of the owners who still play the game. I didn't play yesterday and haven't played yet today. But I've already played almost 80 hours after the launch and I'm intending to play more.
Choice 3: After Thor 2: The Dark World
Evolution of Metal
Member
It is not 300 people playing 24/7, it is 300 at best, which means that there are around 10 hours of sub-200. 250 concurrent players on average is a more realistic figure.
If all players play 1 hour every day, you are looking at 6000 unique players every day.
F2P - no. Free trial (or another F2P synonym) - yes.
xrnzaaas
Member
And it will continue to drop, nothing shocking about that. What would be relevant if it stopped or turned around. You think it's a fun reminder for the devs and for the people who bought the game to be told daily how many out there are left?
Ah yeah phrased it badly it doesn't hold that 300 concurrent people 24/7. But there are people who play the game outside that peak hour. They only counted the ones playing during the peak as people who have still interest in playing it. Not the people who played the game at other time of the day or another day completely.
Nydius
Member
Of course I don't think that. I'm not a moron. However, nothing you wrote changes the fact that the people who own it aren't even playing. With supposedly 70K total owners, only having a peak of 300 CCU (and dropping) indicates there is something much bigger here than people not buying the game due to lack of marketing or anything else. People bought the game and left in droves.
If you don't think that, don't write that.
Evolution of Metal
Member
I counted 250 (which is close to the average number of player any hour of the day).
250 * 24 = 6000 (Players if they all play 1 hour each)
Clearly, there are players who play more and less than 1 hour every day, but I think it is a good number on average.
Sure, seems more accurate than the 300 that other person suggested.
CoD clones were last gen and most of them didn't do particularly well. No idea where this comment is coming from.
Messofanego
Banned
But we all established that CliffyB deems NeoGAF to be unworthy of looking at because we're cunts, so we don't have to worry about the devs being reminded!
You are better off supporting Quake Live, it's 1/3 of the cost and has over double the players compared to Lawbreakers. If you want something newer then Quake Champions as it's numbers will go up when it leaves early access and becomes F2P
Cliffy isn't only one developing the game and there have been atleast two different people from BossKey posting in the OT. Somebody in this thread cares about the feelings of people who put years of their lives to create something fun and you respond with snark. You don't need to shed tears because this game isn't doing well, but I don't get your attitude at all. Not that you would be the only one or the worst offender.
The worst thing the devs have done is to include real money bought loot boxes. Not sure why they would deserve all of this shit for that.
ronaldthump
Member
yikes 302? so sad 
Living the Dream
Member
Can't help but laugh.
fluffydelusions
Member
Hey it went up from yesterday...but just barely
http://steamcharts.com/app/350280
http://steamcharts.com/app/350280
Nice, could we get an update to the thread title?
Messofanego
Banned
I'm snarky cause I bought the game, got shit tutorials that I complained about but fans said that the game is "SkilledAF" so it doesn't need good ones, had some mild fun with the few hours I played enough to post a couple of youtube vids, and now since I've moved onto other games, just watching the ego of CliffyB come crashing down.
If there are BossKey people in the OT and not here, then I don't see the issue. Is the thread being made and bumped affecting their work? Ask them cause I don't want to assume.