Some Steam Charts

[Roland]

This first steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), The Forest (Blue), Subnautica (Orange), and Empyrion (White). What is interesting to me is that both Subnautica and The Forest came out of Early Access this year as fully released games which is what some in these forums keep stating should be TFP's first and foremost goal for 7 Days to Die. Is finishing what you've got and calling it released really that important?

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,242760,264710,383120#All

 

 

This second steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), Rust (Blue), DayZ (Orange), and ARK (White). The interesting thing about this chart to me is just how lucrative an emphasis on PvP can be. It also kinda shows what "dead" actually looks like....

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,252490,221100,346110#All

 

This last steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), The Long Dark (White), Savage Lands (Blue), and Stranded Deep (Orange). This one shows (I believe) that despite having a great idea it is incredibly hard to deliver a game that becomes successful.

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,307880,313120,305620#All

 

All of these games I chose I think are good comparisons to 7 Days to Die because they released to Early Access and are survival and open world experiences. Interested to hear analysis and see more comparison charts with games that have done better or worse than 7 Days to Die and why you believe that to be the case.

[Tin]

Ummm, you accidentally have the abortion that is "The Dead Linger" in place of "The long Dark" in your comparison.

ofc I am amazed they have 1-2 ppl playing it.

[Roland]

Oops. I’ll change it when I get the chance. I considered it. No Man’s Sky is another I considered but do go and look at that in comparison to 7Days to Die.

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,275850#All

 

It really brings home the point that it doesn’t really matter if you call it done or not. It doesn’t matter if you had one of the largest PR fiascos in video game history. If you do a big update people come back to see and then away they go again. Subnautica and The Forest also proves this.

 

Should be interesting to see what happens with A17 and then the month or so following its release.

[Odetta]

Oops. I’ll change it when I get the chance. I considered it. No Man’s Sky is another I considered but do go and look at that in comparison to 7Days to Die. It really brings home the point that it doesn’t really matter if you call it done or not. It doesn’t matter if you had one of the largest PR fiascos in video game history. If you do a big update people come back to see and then away they go again. Subnautica and The Forest also proves this.

 

Should be interesting to see what happens with A17 and then the month or so following its release.

 

Modding is whats gonna it give this game a long and happy life. Games without it usually die fast and hard. No matter how good the vanilla game is, you can only do the same thing for so long before it gets stale. PVP-centric games excluded of course.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Who said PvP is dead? A lot of people on here don´t want a PvP focus because there isn´t many really good PvE games out there, while there is a ton of PvP focused games. I googled "PvP dead". First page is about WoW PvP only. Then it goes on with specific games. Electronic Arts said a while ago that SP is dead tough.

 

Not sure what you mean here.

 

I only hope they don´t get the $ signs in their eyes and now rush the game to release so they can focus on PvP.

[danielspoa]

I struggle to believe PvP is that popular. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to discuss against those numbers. I just want to talk about my personal experience, what I saw in my small world. If this was data about me and my friends it would still indicate high numbers for Ark yet PvP is quite unpopular between us. It was purely due to the survival appeal and the fact 7 days has zero advertising here. No one knew there was a better option than Ark or Rust. After we got to know 7D we never touched Ark or Rust again. And we always play PvE servers.

 

TLDR: 7 days don't get advertised nor we see it recommended by Steam like Ark or Rust do all the time. For the little I know this is more impactul than it being PvP or PvE focused.

 

Now a bonus note: I ♥♥♥♥ing love The Forest. It's sad it has zero replay value, the experience I had playing it was suberb.

[pApA^LeGBa]

I still wonder why they never made a free weekend on steam. Nohting beats every steam user getting a notification. They only rely on streamers. Wich doesn´t really work as we can see. But all hail the twitch. (Sadly not only here)

 

Those 3 days early for streamers don´t really let many people recognize this game. But hey those streamers are soooo importnant. meh.

 

Never forget that there is a bunch of people who don´t have good enough internet to even think about watching live streams. (before any wise guy gets the wrong idea, no that´s not why i am not very fond

of advertising via giving it out earlier to streamers)

[meganoth]

Maybe such advertising doesn't make a lot of sense as long as they are still in an "experimental" phase of game development. EA is not for everyone.

 

Once they are fully in beta or better yet after they have released the game they have something they can show around to pure "consumer" players. At the moment a free weekend would lead to many players noticing lag spikes and bugs and they would be quitting the game before they even notice any of the qualities of the game.

[Katitof]

This second steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), Rust (Blue), DayZ (Orange), and ARK (White). The interesting thing about this chart to me is just how lucrative an emphasis on PvP can be. It also kinda shows what "dead" actually looks like....

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,252490,221100,346110#All

 

If anything, this chart clearly points out that games that left early access and ones which kept adding new features and expanding existing ones -in a reasonable time- tend to gather more players over games which update very rarely, do not add a lot of new stuff and just constantly flip over the old stuff.

 

Early access was great thing at its first year, however due to how much it was exploited by shady devs, nowadays all games with early access tag are being ignored, people got burned multiple times and finally started avoiding them.

 

All the other titles you mentioned are still in early access, or if released(the forest, subnautica) have a clear ending where you can "beat" the game and see credits for that, meaning while they do offer certain freedom, they aren't full endless sandboxes, people play them, beat them and leave them for another game as there simply isn't any reason to keep playing, especially if the actual content isn't expanded in any meaningful way.

 

Arc vs 7d is best example.

Arc started poorly, but expanded rapidly and kept expanding in good pace while adding massive things to the game with new items, buildings, installations, weapons(personal and static) and so on, while 7d also moved fast at start, pacing slowed to a "once a year" patch, which is tiresome to everyone and completely unacceptable if you want to keep high playerbase.

 

 

7d simply seem to be doing too little too rarely to keep players.

And even if something really new drops, does it really add that much?

We're getting new vehicles now, faster badass minibike, literal bike, flying minibike and actual car for more then one player.

That's one of the biggest content things we're getting now at A17.

 

What ARC got at similar time?

Massive dinos that could be made into mobile fortresses/bases.

 

Content pacing, quantity of content and dreaded nowadays "early access" tag have bigger impact on population then ability to pull PvP off.

Hell, look at Minecraft, its hardly a PvP game, kept adding stuff, allowed to make complicated automatic farms and stuff and kept the world interesting with all of that, each update usually adding some cool unique mechanics to play with.

 

7d just doesn't deliver enough stuff in a reasonable amount of time anymore, therefore people are losing interest.

 

That would be mine interpretation of these charts.

[PiercedFromWithin]

I guess statistics really can say whatever you want them to say.

[Kubikus]

This second steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), Rust (Blue), DayZ (Orange), and ARK (White). The interesting thing about this chart to me is just how lucrative an emphasis on PvP can be. It also kinda shows what "dead" actually looks like...

A game with 3000 players (DayZ has currently 3000 players) is not dead. If you can't find anybody to play with, then it's dead. 7dtd is obviously not dead.

[Roland]

A game with 3000 players (DayZ has currently 3000 players) is not dead. If you can't find anybody to play with, then it's dead. 7dtd is obviously not dead.

 

Bad joke on my part. Apologies to DayZ fans.

[Roland]

Who said PvP is dead? A lot of people on here don´t want a PvP focus because there isn´t many really good PvE games out there, while there is a ton of PvP focused games. I googled "PvP dead". First page is about WoW PvP only. Then it goes on with specific games. Electronic Arts said a while ago that SP is dead tough.

 

Not sure what you mean here.

 

I only hope they don´t get the $ signs in their eyes and now rush the game to release so they can focus on PvP.

 

A poor joke at the expense of DayZ.

[Roland]

Arc vs 7d is best example.

Arc started poorly, but expanded rapidly and kept expanding in good pace while adding massive things to the game with new items, buildings, installations, weapons(personal and static) and so on, while 7d also moved fast at start, pacing slowed to a "once a year" patch, which is tiresome to everyone and completely unacceptable if you want to keep high playerbase.

 

ARK started poorly? It started at 80,000 players and never dropped below 50,000 players until just recently. I wouldn't mind 7 Days to Die having a similarly poor start...

 

ARK is one of those that I believe used Early Access more for marketing than for an actual alpha stage development model. It was much further along in development when it entered Early Access than what I would call "Alpha". That is also the reason for the difference in update types. 7 Days to Die updates have predominantly been actual development updates where things are being tried and then either kept or discarded. There will come a time once the systems and base structure of the game is in shippable form that they will be able to shift to the types of updates ARK did and what modders are doing now. Much of ARK's early development was done behind closed doors before it was even in the public awareness. Pretty much all of 7 Days to Die's early development has been done in the public awareness and with public participation.

[Katitof]

I didn't meant poorly in the sense of concurrent players, but in sense of content.

Concurrency isn't much of an issue for 7d and it drops only when we have significant breaks between new content, so it makes perfect sense why population currently is "low" as the game is not only stale currently, but couple that with updates once a year and still being in early access, a lot of players took a break.

 

True, that 7d is a real alpha if we want to go by the dictionary definition, but that also is the problem for the game and players - while it is moving forward, it moves so slowly people are getting tired of it. No doubt 7d will get to the state you talk about, but the question is how long it'll take to get there and will people still have interest for the game.

 

I mean, we've been longer then 5 years in development and there isn't even "its ready for release" anywhere on horizon, couple that with already aforementioned updates taking more and more time before they drop to current 1 year+ and while development is going forward, interest in the actual game and hype for it just plummets down.

 

I do believe that community credit and patience will eventually run out if pimps take too long to deliver and while again, the development cycle is actual alpha, that's also the games biggest problem. Old community just sleeps while waiting for new update and current potential new players avoid games with early access tag like fire.

[Poojam]

This first steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), The Forest (Blue), Subnautica (Orange), and Empyrion (White). What is interesting to me is that both Subnautica and The Forest came out of Early Access this year as fully released games which is what some in these forums keep stating should be TFP's first and foremost goal for 7 Days to Die. Is finishing what you've got and calling it released really that important?

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,242760,264710,383120#All

 

 

This second steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), Rust (Blue), DayZ (Orange), and ARK (White). The interesting thing about this chart to me is just how lucrative an emphasis on PvP can be. It also kinda shows what "dead" actually looks like....

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,252490,221100,346110#All

 

This last steam chart comparison is between 7 Days to Die (Green), The Long Dark (White), Savage Lands (Blue), and Stranded Deep (Orange). This one shows (I believe) that despite having a great idea it is incredibly hard to deliver a game that becomes successful.

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,307880,313120,305620#All

 

All of these games I chose I think are good comparisons to 7 Days to Die because they released to Early Access and are survival and open world experiences. Interested to hear analysis and see more comparison charts with games that have done better or worse than 7 Days to Die and why you believe that to be the case.

 

7DTD is pretty mod friendly once you get past the XML learning curve. A lot of those games are not, and will die shortly after going gold. Counter strike Go, which was an updated version of CS are both HL mods, and are still going strong with 1/2 million daily players because it takes a lot longer time to get old fighting other people.....

 

Vanilla is also basically the same as it was in A11. Nothing significant has really changed other than the devs have installed a bunch of grindy mechanics to slow down the progression. They think it's fun, and there is an audience for that. I get it, I do. Actually, most of the audience that still exists (and is on this forum) think that's fun. They want to level up their farmer and make a pot of stew in game with ingredients that take hours to farm and collect, and after each level they can make it slightly more nutritious! The other several millions people that bought the game aren't quite as thrilled with that, and have mostly moved on.

 

Mods and steam workshop support are where this game's community can take foot and thrive. After each Alpha, the modders take a lot of time to write & rewrite their mods, changing/installing new features with newly implemented code changes. I think that is why you hear frequently that players want it done. They want TFP to create a stable game, so they can update their mods and play. When we know TFP are safely "done" for 6 months, then we can actually rent servers @ $100/month, publicize, and plan on playing with friends for a while. In this current development atmosphere, much fewer people are willing to put forth the effort on going through another playthrough when the game could update tomorrow, next week, or maybe 3 months from now. It's a real turn off for most players, that is, unless you're satisfied with a solo/laid back experience.

 

Mods that support PVP in a mostly fair way or a cooperative, diverse, extensive, challenging PVE gameplay are most important. The trouble is TFP don't really want either of those. They left the game to flounder in a competitive environment for the last several years because they wanted to rework sticks, reskin deer and trees for the 3rd time, add falling debris, gore blocks, and trim the game down to support consoles instead of taking 2 months and giving admins the tools they needed to police their servers, remove exploits and ban hackers. It really killed the game in the primary window of opportunity when it was really trying to grow. Just about every EA game I can think of that was as far along as 7DTD TRIES to care and fix these things to ensure players stay with it. When people that cared posted about it on the forums in A11, A12, A13 - they were met with a very adversarial and dismissive attitude from TFP.

 

ARK does PVE better (although I don't care for the time investment, which is much greater), and PVP slightly better (raiding is absolutely atrocious though). Fortnite (tower defense + PVP) and PubG (PVP only) do the pvp experience much better. This game could have been right behind Fortnite and PubG with millions of active players, but it's not. Now I'm not advocating for them to copy them, but if they copied the successful mechanics - I think they would generate a lot of buzz. 7DTD wouldn't be the same, and would fill a certain niche. It would have a much longer duration playthrough, more diverse crafting experience, survival aspects, PLUS PLUS PLUS a really good base building and very good voxel terrain. It's like Adult Minecraft meets WOW/DAOC and CS, which is exactly what a LOT of people were craving 4 years ago. That's exactly why when topics come up about how to make this game better for PVP, I always suggest to create new ways and needs for players to interact and generate conflict. Do not discourage it by setting the sound distance for guns to ~200 meters!

 

The PVP games on the market today that are massively successful are more than simple arena PVP's that give plenty of time to search, interact, large element of chance, etc. I don't know if that environment is the same today. TFP had the choice to make at about A11, and they clearly chose the opposite path. I think it's destined to be a 5-10,000 active player game for 2 years and will be forgotten forever. Now that the other zombie survival clones have worn the market down, I don't know if 7DTD can ever be much more successful without a major revamp & marketing campaign.

 

FYI

PUBG - 944,000 playing in the 24 hour peak

https://steamcharts.com/app/578080

 

Fortnite

Tough to tell, but they claim over 125,000 million players - which I'm sure is just downloads. I would estimate 1M - 2M concurrent players daily.

https://www.gamesradar.com/how-many-people-play-fortnite/

[DaVegaNL]

Oops. I’ll change it when I get the chance. I considered it. No Man’s Sky is another I considered but do go and look at that in comparison to 7Days to Die.

 

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,275850#All

 

It really brings home the point that it doesn’t really matter if you call it done or not. It doesn’t matter if you had one of the largest PR fiascos in video game history. If you do a big update people come back to see and then away they go again. Subnautica and The Forest also proves this.

 

Should be interesting to see what happens with A17 and then the month or so following its release.

 

Well.. As I said before; it would be interesting to see whether A17 can retain a higher player number after release. It's all nice and well if there's a peak in player numbers when A17 releases, that's natural. If player numbers drop off significantly ~a month after release to pre-A17 levels, there's something to worry about.

[JCrook1028]

7DTD is pretty mod friendly once you get past the XML learning curve. A lot of those games are not, and will die shortly after going gold. Counter strike Go, which was an updated version of CS are both HL mods, and are still going strong with 1/2 million daily players because it takes a lot longer time to get old fighting other people.....

 

Vanilla is also basically the same as it was in A11. Nothing significant has really changed other than the devs have installed a bunch of grindy mechanics to slow down the progression. They think it's fun, and there is an audience for that. I get it, I do. Actually, most of the audience that still exists (and is on this forum) think that's fun. They want to level up their farmer and make a pot of stew in game with ingredients that take hours to farm and collect, and after each level they can make it slightly more nutritious! The other several millions people that bought the game aren't quite as thrilled with that, and have mostly moved on.

 

Mods and steam workshop support are where this game's community can take foot and thrive. After each Alpha, the modders take a lot of time to write & rewrite their mods, changing/installing new features with newly implemented code changes. I think that is why you hear frequently that players want it done. They want TFP to create a stable game, so they can update their mods and play. When we know TFP are safely "done" for 6 months, then we can actually rent servers @ $100/month, publicize, and plan on playing with friends for a while. In this current development atmosphere, much fewer people are willing to put forth the effort on going through another playthrough when the game could update tomorrow, next week, or maybe 3 months from now. It's a real turn off for most players, that is, unless you're satisfied with a solo/laid back experience.

 

Mods that support PVP in a mostly fair way or a cooperative, diverse, extensive, challenging PVE gameplay are most important. The trouble is TFP don't really want either of those. They left the game to flounder in a competitive environment for the last several years because they wanted to rework sticks, reskin deer and trees for the 3rd time, add falling debris, gore blocks, and trim the game down to support consoles instead of taking 2 months and giving admins the tools they needed to police their servers, remove exploits and ban hackers. It really killed the game in the primary window of opportunity when it was really trying to grow. Just about every EA game I can think of that was as far along as 7DTD TRIES to care and fix these things to ensure players stay with it. When people that cared posted about it on the forums in A11, A12, A13 - they were met with a very adversarial and dismissive attitude from TFP.

 

ARK does PVE better (although I don't care for the time investment, which is much greater), and PVP slightly better (raiding is absolutely atrocious though). Fortnite (tower defense + PVP) and PubG (PVP only) do the pvp experience much better. This game could have been right behind Fortnite and PubG with millions of active players, but it's not. Now I'm not advocating for them to copy them, but if they copied the successful mechanics - I think they would generate a lot of buzz. 7DTD wouldn't be the same, and would fill a certain niche. It would have a much longer duration playthrough, more diverse crafting experience, survival aspects, PLUS PLUS PLUS a really good base building and very good voxel terrain. It's like Adult Minecraft meets WOW/DAOC and CS, which is exactly what a LOT of people were craving 4 years ago. That's exactly why when topics come up about how to make this game better for PVP, I always suggest to create new ways and needs for players to interact and generate conflict. Do not discourage it by setting the sound distance for guns to ~200 meters!

 

The PVP games on the market today that are massively successful are more than simple arena PVP's that give plenty of time to search, interact, large element of chance, etc. I don't know if that environment is the same today. TFP had the choice to make at about A11, and they clearly chose the opposite path. I think it's destined to be a 5-10,000 active player game for 2 years and will be forgotten forever. Now that the other zombie survival clones have worn the market down, I don't know if 7DTD can ever be much more successful without a major revamp & marketing campaign.

 

FYI

PUBG - 944,000 playing in the 24 hour peak

https://steamcharts.com/app/578080

 

Fortnite

Tough to tell, but they claim over 125,000 million players - which I'm sure is just downloads. I would estimate 1M - 2M concurrent players daily.

https://www.gamesradar.com/how-many-people-play-fortnite/

 

Yea yea, we (and TFP) get it. PVP is popular and you like PVP. But it is NOT TFP's primary focus. Period. There's plenty of PVE customers that will support this title and the studio.

[RestInPieces]

The PVP games on the market today that are massively successful are more than simple arena PVP's that give plenty of time to search, interact, large element of chance, etc. I don't know if that environment is the same today. TFP had the choice to make at about A11, and they clearly chose the opposite path. I think it's destined to be a 5-10,000 active player game for 2 years and will be forgotten forever. Now that the other zombie survival clones have worn the market down, I don't know if 7DTD can ever be much more successful without a major revamp & marketing campaign.

 

Silly TFP would be multi-millionairs by now if they read the pimp dreams section 5 years ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?82-A-collection-of-features-for-a-better-post-apocalyptic-zombie-survival-simulation (end of post, "game modes" section)

[Jedo]

Well.. As I said before; it would be interesting to see whether A17 can retain a higher player number after release. It's all nice and well if there's a peak in player numbers when A17 releases, that's natural. If player numbers drop off significantly ~a month after release to pre-A17 levels, there's something to worry about.

 

First of all, if higher player numbers are because of more sales, then that is a win. Second, if the numbers drop off similarly to other alpha releases, why is that worrisome this time?

 

Silly TFP would be multi-millionairs by now if they read the pimp dreams section 5 years ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?82-A-collection-of-features-for-a-better-post-apocalyptic-zombie-survival-simulation (end of post, "game modes" section)

 

Are they not multi-millionaires? I thought multiple people had done the math on this already...

[RestInPieces]

Are they not multi-millionaires? I thought multiple people had done the math on this already...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire#Multimillionaire

Get wikipedia'ed nub!

 

And the math is not sales x price.

 

It's sales x price (including discounts) - the actual production expenses (like the mo'cap stuff) - marketing expenses - publisher earnings - taxes - pot smoked in kg during the process and psychological counseling for the hate posts - etc etc

[Jedo]

We have different definitions, I guess. If they have at least $2 million that would be "multi" millionaire in my book.

 

And I know the math requires subtraction of things. Technically, we don't have all the numbers (so we can't know for sure), but I figured that the rough estimates made were sufficient to assume that they have over $2 million, maybe even $10.

 

All of that was nit-picky, though. It's true that TFP could have made more money if they had done things differently. I won't refute that. I will say that I'm sure they know that and clearly are unconcerned. Some people aren't out to get all the money that they possibly can get. I know that some of you just can't fathom that.

[RestInPieces]

Some people aren't out to get all the money that they possibly can get. I know that some of you just can't fathom that.

 

Well, people who are, usually spend more money on marketing than on development nowadays so, not hard to fathom at all.

[OldManBrian]

You guys should add a Battle Royale mode where the radiation zone keeps shrinking. I'm halfway serious.

[RestInPieces]

 

You guys should add a Battle Royale mode where the radiation zone keeps shrinking. I'm halfway serious.