9 in 10 people who bought XR have stopped playing

[Coruskane]

And 8 out of 10 cats prefer whiskas, what's the point?

best quote

[jl1aisbett]

Also keep in mind most people beat portal 2 in about 4-6 hours.

I'll admit it's not a perfect example but it's the best I could think of that had a high level of anticipation just before release (that's on steam at least).

Most of the highly anticipated games that people play for a lot longer aren't really steam games so I couldn't use them as an example.

In reality very few games are similar to rebirth at all, albion prelude is the only X game that's similar and was at the time of release a purely steam only game:

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action= ... 7064400000

It doesn't highlight the anticipation point though because it was only announced a couple of weeks before it was released so nobody knew it was coming.

[jl1aisbett]

They are like projects created by programmers who love to code, but hate to do any documentation !

God do I know so many programmers like that, feel like slapping them all the time.

They give us all a bad name, unfortunately I think they are starting to outnumber those of us that spend craps loads of time documenting stuff.

[Charlie901]

Add me to that list .01 Playtime since preorder and installation!

As a TRUE X FAN I have no desire to play this until quite a number of fixes and additions are made!

[Hob Anagerik]

Checking the steam charts is pointless at this time. The game is very buggy and I doubt people want to waste time playing it as is, which is understandable. I think those numbers will be on the rise once most functionality is working as intended.

That's probably true, but this isn't pointless at all. It reflects the communities feelings towards the game at this point in time, and that would be that the majority of people don't seem to think it is worth playing right now. As you say, once functionality improves, so will the situation. Unless you are suggesting that at this future point in time when things are working better, and the game climbs back up the charts a bit that would be equally pointless?

[Rug]

Unless you are suggesting that at this future point in time when things are working better, and the game climbs back up the charts a bit that would be equally pointless?

I think that sounds about right. As long as enough people are interested on these forums to keep Egosoft patching and updating, then I really don't care what the numbers playing at any one time are. The number may be flattering/depressing for Egosoft to see, but the total sales figure is the one that is actually important to them.

Rug

[ezra-r]

If you go to Steam Client and click on the menu STORE option STATS you will now see Rebirth is now on the top list of most played in Steam right now:

Current - Peak - Game
2,334 2,334 X Rebirth


Interesting current.

I can speak for myself about this stats, Egosoft is doing good fixing it, played last night more than I have continuosly played it, going to play it now for a while too.

[Lyth]

There are atleast 12 space simulation games about to come onto the market offering what the old X games used too and more, in the years it will take to make Rebirth anything like an old X game, will anyone be interested if they still have to fight through the features intended for a 30 hours life cycle game?

Egosoft are going from having no competition in their field to being no competition in their field with Rebirth.

I'm hoping they just get to work on a new game once the bugs and performance issues are dealt with, if Rebirth is the the game that all the old features will be added too, I would guess that Egosoft have a nice future as being a wiki page entry to look forward too.

[kurush]

There are atleast 12 space simulation games about to come onto the market

12? I know only 3 and 2 of them seem to be some MMO crap. Also, none of them offers X-style economy and empire building. Well, may be LT will get something but we don know how far Josp plans it to go.

[Lyth]

If you go to Steam Client and click on the menu STORE option STATS you will now see Rebirth is now on the top list of most played in Steam right now:

Current - Peak - Game
2,334 2,334 X Rebirth
Interesting current.

I can speak for myself about this stats, Egosoft is doing good fixing it, played last night more than I have continuosly played it, going to play it now for a while too.

Because still having more people playing a train simulator over the Rebirth highway simulator game is encouraging news....

2,457 2,506 Train Simulator 2014

Not nitpicking, know what you meant to say and I appreciate it, this is the game that was supposed to bring in the masses don't forget. Swapping your niche for a micro niche in a genre you dominated as a company makes the game a failure in my eyes, anyway you cut it.

[Lyth]

There are atleast 12 space simulation games about to come onto the market

12? I know only 3 and 2 of them seem to be some MMO crap. Also, none of them offers X-style economy and empire building. Well, may be LT will get something but we don know how far Josp plans it to go.

My point was on topic, pop over to off topic English for other game discussions please.

[Santi]

Facts are that close to one month after release, Rebirth has been in the list of Top Sellers in Steam pretty much all the time and the Top played games list too. With the release of 1.19 people buying the game will have a quite stable game. Considering that there was a Steam Sale and Assassin Creed release, terrible reviews by Critics and Players, and a unplayable game at release, they are doing very well. What they should not be happy about is the missed opportunity to be one of the best releases of 2013 and be considered an AAA title.

[Lyth]

Facts are that close to one month after release, Rebirth has been in the list of Top Sellers in Steam pretty much all the time and the Top played games list too. With the release of 1.19 people buying the game will have a quite stable game. Considering that there was a Steam Sale and Assassin Creed release, terrible reviews by Critics and Players, and a unplayable game at release, they are doing very well. What they should not be happy about is the missed opportunity to be one of the best releases of 2013 and be considered an AAA title.

Facts? It's in the list for what it has Sold not what it is Selling. More people are buying Bus simulator than Rebirth.

Being the Best of the Worst, or Worst of the Best is atleast something I guess.

[Santi]

It's in the list for what it has Sold not what it is Selling.

The Steam top seller chart is no a total units sold. Otherwise titles like Skyrim will be at the top all the time. Nothing wrong with Bus Simulator, actually I am going to check it out.


Edit: Great news, we beat Bus Simulator on the top selling list.

[Iosyn]

It's in the list for what it has Sold not what it is Selling.

The Steam top seller chart is no a total units sold. Otherwise titles like Skyrim will be at the top all the time. Nothing wrong with Bus Simulator, actually I am going to check it out.


Edit: Great news, we beat Bus Simulator on the top selling list.

For now. The company that makes that bus simulator games makes hundreds of different simulators using the same engine.

Also the only thing stopping me from getting star citizen or elite dangerous is the fact that they'll be MMOs and frankly I don't believe they'll have the same scale of economy or station building as X3TC/AP.

Hell is other people. I don't want no pay to win shit or ingame advertising (let alone chinese gold sellers, trolls and /map chat spam etc) while I'm trying to have fun.

[Lyth]

Really is off topic, I am only a part of the Star Citizen single player and LAN sections, so that's not entirely accurate. As I said other games are for off topic.

You actually named two games I'm not interested in the slightest for what I want, could suggest others but then that is what off topic section is for....

[FinWiz]

I apologize if someone has already broached the subject, I don't have the motivation to invest in reading this entire thread with my disappointment with Rebirth.

But, most people seem to be comparing apples to oranges. How about we compare apples to apples?

X: Rebirth
http://steamcharts.com/app/2870#All
All Peak: 14,664
24-Hour Peak: 2,068

X: Terran Conflict
http://steamcharts.com/app/2820#All
All Peak: 713
24-Hour Peak: 506

X: Albion Prelude
http://steamcharts.com/app/201310#All
All Peak: 1,853
24-Hour Peak: 945

Seems to me that There is a commanding difference in the number of players still playing these games. Granted, many may be waiting for the bugs to clear. But I don't recall ever letting the bugs of the older games stop me. I'd reload, restart, or even script around them where possible.

For the record, not a fan of this game. I've been thinking about purchasing Albion Prelude but I just can't bring myself to do it after being baited and switched like this. I had reservations about pre-ordering this game when I heard about the one ship fits all decision. But I thought, it's Egosoft! They can probably make it work.

As it turns out the number 1 design choice of this game that kills it for me is the one ship fits all. I'm not interested. If I wanted that I'd of played the original X game which never appealed. It wasn't until the later X Games where virtually everything was fair game that I got interested.

It was made out to seem like the empire you build in Rebirth would more or less run itself, but that's not the case. You manually make decisions for everything. Nothing is autonomous. Well, if I have to do all the work anyway, why not also let me pilot the damn things since that's the only thing I'm not doing. Add to that the fact that it would vastly improve the game experience. If something doesn't move under AI control, you can take direct control.

Oh hey, look at that! I'm ranting. I'll stop now.

Those are very interesting charts you posted. In three months Albion Prelude had a 40% drop off in players while it had already established on stable fan/player base. X3TC had an 56% drop off while original X3 had an 70% drop off. All within 3 months. None of this really matters however as stats only count from 2012 on. By that time, those games were already as perfect as they were gonna get and most of people playing those games didn't play them via Steam. For example, all time peak for original X3 was 200...

[thedesertwolf]

You also have to recall that X3 and X2 both had a no-steam launcher distributed through egosoft a good while back. I believe that came out with the bonus materials package (Amazing little mods incorporated into the primary gameplay). While we are comparing their initial launches right now we all know that statistics and variables are heavily up to interpretation by the individual viewing them.

Heck one could say "This is not my cow, this is a potato with wings" while the other says "While the steady decline of active users throughout these games signifies a marked drop-off point among general users of the X series games after launch, due to the existence of things such as the no-steam launcher provided by egosoft, their reliability may be called into question. It also does not correspond well to the number of people playing the games in offline mode as some people find valve's services invasive and do not use the social functions of their digital distribution software."

Or something like that.

For now I'm all for the 'lay back, wait, and see if it lays a golden egg" philosophy. Or at least it gets ironed out to be fun and unique and they get all of their strange design choices to finally mesh together. Either or works.

[dzhedzho]

I apologize if someone has already broached the subject, I don't have the motivation to invest in reading this entire thread with my disappointment with Rebirth.

But, most people seem to be comparing apples to oranges. How about we compare apples to apples?

X: Rebirth
http://steamcharts.com/app/2870#All
All Peak: 14,664
24-Hour Peak: 2,068

X: Terran Conflict
http://steamcharts.com/app/2820#All
All Peak: 713
24-Hour Peak: 506

X: Albion Prelude
http://steamcharts.com/app/201310#All
All Peak: 1,853
24-Hour Peak: 945

Seems to me that There is a commanding difference in the number of players still playing these games. Granted, many may be waiting for the bugs to clear. But I don't recall ever letting the bugs of the older games stop me. I'd reload, restart, or even script around them where possible.

For the record, not a fan of this game. I've been thinking about purchasing Albion Prelude but I just can't bring myself to do it after being baited and switched like this. I had reservations about pre-ordering this game when I heard about the one ship fits all decision. But I thought, it's Egosoft! They can probably make it work.

As it turns out the number 1 design choice of this game that kills it for me is the one ship fits all. I'm not interested. If I wanted that I'd of played the original X game which never appealed. It wasn't until the later X Games where virtually everything was fair game that I got interested.

It was made out to seem like the empire you build in Rebirth would more or less run itself, but that's not the case. You manually make decisions for everything. Nothing is autonomous. Well, if I have to do all the work anyway, why not also let me pilot the damn things since that's the only thing I'm not doing. Add to that the fact that it would vastly improve the game experience. If something doesn't move under AI control, you can take direct control.

Oh hey, look at that! I'm ranting. I'll stop now.

Those are very interesting charts you posted. In three months Albion Prelude had a 40% drop off in players while it had already established on stable fan/player base. X3TC had an 56% drop off while original X3 had an 70% drop off. All within 3 months. None of this really matters however as stats only count from 2012 on. By that time, those games were already as perfect as they were gonna get and most of people playing those games didn't play them via Steam. For example, all time peak for original X3 was 200...

Original X3R and X3TC was mostly distributed by retail IIRC and did not require steam.

[Draslin]

You're forgetting that when the Original X3 came out, it wasn't on steam. Most people bought it via other retail outlets.

What is most interesting to me however, is that between TC and AP, there are almost as many people playing those in the last 24 hours as there are people playing X Rebirth and you wouldn't think that to be the case.

Also, your numbers are off, we can't tell from these charts what the launch numbers were. They only go back to July 2012. What I was pointing out was that we have two to five year old games with nearly the same player base of Rebirth which was just released.

I never bought AP because I assumed Rebirth was just around the corner and I speculate that a fair number of people did the same. The numbers on X3: Reunion are markedly lower.

Now, if you look at these you'll note that both TC and AP usage jumped with the AP 3.0 update came out. And again usage jumped about 2 days after Rebirth came out and has remained relatively steady since. I'd speculate the reason for that is that Rebirth doesn't appeal to majority of the fan base and people are going back to the good stuff.

Maybe it's just people playing what they have available to them until they can pick up Rebirth. Of course Rebirth's numbers have dropped like a stone, maybe we'll have a better idea in a few months time of what those numbers will look like in the long term and see how they compare to TC and AP.