http://steamcharts.com/app/99900
Came across this handy tool. It seems that the games playerbase peaked during August 2013. Overall the game seems to have been able to get above 1k players pretty consistently besides these past few months.
Also, please note that this data is only from people who play from Steam. Standalone client users are not included.
I have never seen anyone reference it before as a source claiming the game is dying. I just posted it here as people might find it interesting to see the data, people who have not seen it before, such as myself for example. Nowhere do I directly claim that this game is dying. A friendly post, is all this is.
Probably a lot of new-ish players don't know about this, so it's a reasonable thread.
In addition to what others have pointed out, it's worth mentioning that Spiral Knights launched two months before it launched on Steam. Two months is not much time, but the first two months of the game are worth thinking about. For example the game reached 1 million accounts in its first three months.
Well the longer you spend around on these forums, the more likely you're going to see someone use that data to "prove" that the game is dying, have someone suggest a dual wielding thread that is "give two weapons, remove shield", or see one of Midnight-Dj's songs that I can never for the life of me pay attention to because I have no musical direction in what it's supposed to sound like and I imagine it's a screamo so I just ignore it.
So yeah, interesting bit of data, but it's not too hard to find if you want to look for it.
@Fangel
*Denies that SK is dying*
*Says that everyone is going to eventually die in Hexlash's moral button thread*
It is also worth noting that Steam had 2 incredibly annoying "promotions" where you you had to get a certain achievement in this game (and a few others) in order to get... something. Which is what created the 2 giant bumps before the data goes back to its usual course.
Annoying because you had maybe 1% of the people that joined from the "promotions" stay, and all the rest just interfered with people that were actually trying to enjoy themselves,
~Gwen
Midnight-Dj's songs that I can never for the life of me pay attention to because I have no musical direction in what it's supposed to sound like and I imagine it's a screamo so I just ignore it.
ROFLMAO
I'm quite sure the 2013 spike was thanks to the sprite update, actually.
As for the promotions, I only know of one of them but for those who wonder, you can get a hat in Team Fortress 2 by reaching the first terminal in the arcade. There were A LOT of people getting this when SK released on Steam but we get a steady stream of them to this day. What was the other promo?
1. Hat for TF2
2. Obtain a Firecracker Bomb as a part of Steam Summer Sale 2011 (you got 1 steam point for this, and for 3 points you got free stuff)
3. Hit an enemy with a snowball in Lockdown as a part of Steam Winter Sale 2011 (you got a steam coal for this, and ~8 coals = free stuff)
I maintain that SteamCharts is an effective way of measuring trends in the population, but not specific numbers as it only counts people who play through steam.
For example, the spike in October 2012 was for the second Dark Harvest festival, which was the first event to feature recolor costumes. That seems like a silly reason now, but it basically introduced a way for people to get accessories without paying through the nose for lockboxes and keys.
The spike in July 2013 was for Battle Sprites, obviously, which generated massive amounts of hype and the biggest rise in players probably since the game's launch. That spike took much longer to subside because many people leveled their sprites to 100 and in doing so played more of the game, set new goals for themselves, and generally stuck around for a while. It also stayed for longer because during that decline Apocrea was released, which piqued everyone's attention again (and offered lots more grinding).
Since those two updates, no updates have sparked enough interest to cause a significant bump in players, and like most MMOs with a fixed amount of content the population will slowly decline over time as it has been doing since then. Since January 2014, the active population of this game has been roughly cut in half.
"The spike in July 2013 was for Battle Sprites, obviously, which generated massive amounts of hype and the biggest rise in players probably since the game's launch."
@Klipik:
This is also the month where the Mist Energy system was taking out in favor of removing the limited gameplay time it caused. Back then the 100 mist was quite a burden back then for anyone that did not get to a point where they can grind/market on a regular basis to just pay the energy for what ever they wanted to do. This was slightly relaxed when the Elevator Pass was introduced but still was a burden true Free to Play players from being able to play for long periods of times (as they relied on Mist and Crystal energy.)
Oh yeah, forgot about all that. Apocrea also happened at the same time as they massively decreased the Spark and Fire Crystal drop rate, so people had to play less carefully and grind more to forge things.
But playing forever on Mist was totally possible. The problem was playing things other than boss levels.
But playing forever on Mist was totally possible. The problem was playing things other than boss levels.
Every time this topic comes up, I have to point out how easy it was to play forever. As this table shows, there were many missions that paid more than "break even". For example, even when CE cost 9,500, there were still 9 missions that paid more than that per 10 levels played.
Of course, buying 100 energy every 10 levels really cut into your profits.
even when CE cost 9,500
Wasn't CE 6000-7000 at the time of Mists' removal?
I don't remember CE prices in detail. You could consult the CE price watch tool, if it still exists. I think that prices did go over 9,000 sometime in the first two years of the game. But yes, prices around 5,500-7,500 seem more typical. Anyway, you can pick whatever price you want. The table tells you how many missions were profitable at that price.
The point is: Many missions other than boss missions were profitable.
Uh, but I might as well raise the counter-point too: Most of these missions were Royal Jelly or later. So novices had a harder time.
Oh hey, you stumbled across the one piece of source data that people who have been whining "this game is dying" have been pointing at for the last four years like a child nagging their mum in a toy store.