I can't refer to nerds as nerds when I am a 40k nerd? In fact that would make me an expert of whose a nerd in 40k when I am one myself. This is all out of endearment, friend.
Even Relic and THQ didn't live up to their standard with Space Marine. There is a reason that game only has a fraction of a percent of its owners playing it, its multiplayer is pretty terrible. Everyone played the awesome single player where you are overpowered (and it IS awesome indeed), but the rest of the game just didn't hold up.
They had a pretty nice start but yeah, it felt like SP and MP were developed by 2 completely different teams (hello Doom4)
surely this is a contradiction in terms nerds don't care what is and isn't popular, that is why they are nerds, rofl.... on this basis therefore i don't give a shit how POPULAR the IP is, all i care about, is the fact that i love it!!!!! lapping it up!
So you post live player counts for all games but Eternal crusade? That´s weird. You use total players in the last 2 weeks for EC but live players for Battlefield. Let´s put these numbers into perspective. Here are your numbers: For anyone who hasn´t noticed the numbers for EC are total players in 2 weeks and for Battlefield they Current Live players. To try to prove anything using only these numbers while not having at least the numbers for the same things seems really wrong. If you want to compare stats use the same stats for all the games! Let´s compare the different numbers you keep bringing up: First of Players in the last 2 weeks: Here we need to take into account that the data is coming from different Websites. Steamspy and (i used) battlefieldtracker.com. Warhammer 40,000 : Eternal Crusade Players in the last 2 weeks: 22,882 ± 3,862 (28.76%) I´m too lazy to add the numbers up from the above mentioned site so here is the player count for 1 single day in Battlefield 4: 22,241 EdiT: Fuck it i did sum it up: Players in the last 2 weeks: 363,556 Battlefield 1: I´m sorry but i can´t find stats for this. But comparing it to a just released game is silly anyway. Just check Battlefield ones CURRENT PLAYER COUNT a bit more down. Sources: http://steamspy.com/app/375230 http://battlefieldtracker.com/bf4/population?days=14 Owners: Same again different stat sites. EC: 79,574 ± 7,202 Battlefield 4: 1,400,000 (i use only the PC sales because i do not want to be too harsh on the EC. BF4 sold way better on consoles) Battlefield 1: Again can´t find correct data for this for the current release reason. I don´t see why a comparison could be beneficial anyway. Sources: http://steamspy.com/app/375230 http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield 4 So here is the thing where we have the best data for: Currently online players: Again different sites but for BF we have multiple to choose from. Warhammer 40,000 : Eternal Crusade: Currently online players (Total 272) Battlefield 4: Currently online players (Total 6,109 Again PC only. Around the same number again on consoles) Battlefiel 1: Currently online players (Total 20,425 Again PC only. Way more on consoles ) Sources: http://steamcharts.com/app/375230 http://bf4stats.com/ http://bf1stats.com/ All of the data was taken from the mentioned sites approximately 20 minutes before posting this. Does this mean the game is dead? No it doesn´t. It means your stats are useless. comparing games to a game that is more or less in prerelease and the Battlefield Series (which it enormous marketing and staying power) is more or less redundant anyway.
Regardless of player numbers...2 weeks ago queues were almost instantaneous. Last night, queues varied from 30 seconds - 2 mins. Sure this game isn't quite dead yet, but myself and a lot of people just aren't that motivated to play right now.
Here lies another problem. Queue times beyond a few minutes will be disastrous for this game. Let's be honest, for all Nathan's acceptance that all we have is a Lobby Shooter, in truth, we have a shooter without a lobby. We cannot see who in online, how many players in different factions etc so we could balance the queues and what not. No chat in the lobby. We had lobby chat 20 years ago, why can't EC have it? At least with slower pops, people would be aware they are not the only ones waiting.
As soon as another major patch hits, population count will skyrocket again. Just like it did with all the other major patches.
This too is changing. I also want to express that it was clearly never Be's intent to "make or break" the game on launch day. Battlefield has been rolling with the same general marketing principles as every other game ever made since the dawn of gaming: Work furiously to produce the best looking game for the cheapest cost at the point of sale, i.e Launch. BE invested very little into it's marketing strategy. Since Nathan arrived he basically jibed away from Miguel's strategy as quickly as possible. They stopped going to most of the major conventions. They stopped making huge promises. They didn't make any CGI videos - except the Ork spotlight for 15 seconds. They pretty much just straight worked on the game for 2 years and did their best to communicate with us on both the forums and streams. And now that it's launched, I think their goal is simply to retain as many customers as possible and steadily continue to build on the hub and spoke model until more and more of the MMO comes out of the game. I think honestly, they're treating the game not as a success from Launch, but a post launch growth. They don't give two shits about a bad launch, they're looking at the ten year plan and trying to figure out how to make the game successful over a very long time. Those I believe will be the numbers to follow after a few patches and expansions. Battlefield 4 - 26% Had 2 relatively small DLC updates, and comparatively little competition on the market over its lifespan. The game that will succeed it is Battlefield 1... How many years after launch? It will be interesting to see the numbers in 2-3 months. EC - 28.75% Weekly Updates / Hotfixes Monthly Major Updates Quarterly Expansions I'm feeling as though the idea here is to ramp up the player percentages over time. Since a lot of people can't get refunds, and rightfully don't like the game, they may never return, but they do own the game. And maybe they will, after some bug fixes and such, the campaign gets implemented, TEQs get implemented, and we get larger maps, that % of players may start to rise. People may return to the game (they always do near patches anyway), and it'll keep rising. And even if we get something like 50% of the game's owners playing in a 2 week period, that's 30k. Word of mouth may travel that the game continues to improve, tthe devs care about its community and work hard to improve the game constantly, and people start attraching friends to the game, so on and so forth. Could they do better in managing the community? Hell yeah. But that's pretty much it. I don't think they intended Launch to be massive. They understood their game wasn't ready, now it's about fixing what's broken, and getting better, and player retention over long periods of time.
