Goat Simulator is great - there's no pretext or arrogance there... just a goat

Holy...crap!!! 85 players in single-player mode?! Are you sure that's not MP?

As for the steam figures, that can't be real surely?

The steam figures are for sp/mp combined. It tracks anyone who has the game open for any reason. But you also have to remember that the steam figures are for STEAM ONLY and we all know that most people preordered the game before the steam version was even announced so those numbers are probably skewed low.

If you open the MP browser and count players you will probably find more players in MP alone that are listed as in steam playing the game.

I think it was Loft who once said BoS needed 200,000 players to be considered a success. I'm sure the other 199,915 players are quietly working their way through the unlocks as we speak...

My point in posting the Steam stats reflects the possible amount of War Thunder players since that type of player probably would not have spent the $100 on the EA...but purchased it on Steam after release.

Just to close the loop a little and provide some "relative" numbers from steamcharts. Here is a comparison of BOS, CoD, and 1946 on Steam.



The only thing I take from this is that CoD seems to be outperforming BoS...by a relatively decent margin. And BOS has a very bad trend going.

That's a great chart ---- says a lot when CoD is whipping it and Il-2 1946 which is ancient in video game terms, is competitive -- when accounting for the pre-holiday sales promo they had for BoS

1946 is going to experience a nice interest injection with the pending release of CFM

And the TF CoD having a comfortable lead here...and interest in TF version 5..

There are limits to simply "shiny and new"

I'd say that BoS is in trouble.

Go TF Cliffs!!
I am not surprised, imho BOS is not even in the same league as Cliffs, or 1946 for that matter.

The sad thing is, there is depth there in BOS that could well be used, but for whatever reason they choose to simplify it rather than utilizing all of it's possibilities.

Time will tell, if this will work for them. From what I am seeing, I have my doubts.

My biggest concern for BOS is that fairly pronounced decline in people playing it starting right before Christmas. I am sure there is some noise in the signal from it being Steam, but a great point is that 1946 is not far behind BOS in Steam players. My guess would be that the far majority of 1946 players are not on Steam.

Another point--every CloD player is on Steam. You can't play it otherwise.

How many BoS players are NOT on Steam? My guess is the majority (defined as 50% +1) are playing without Steam.

So while those numbers indicate that 3x more people play CloD than BoS, just like 46 the majority aren't using Steam. These stats are meaningless other than to show the actual number of CloD players, which I must say are hardly stellar either.



The Jedi Master

Yeah, but that downward trend is a little disheartening. Frankly, if I was investor, I would not put another dime into it.

I thought the whole point was to capture a large audience. I suspect those numbers are counter to that. And the fact that q 10-year old game is running pretty close to BOS is even more troubling.

I also checked DCS. They are also running an average of about 200 players pretty steady for a year. That is a game closer to the BOS model. Compared to that BOS's numbers are pretty weak.

btw, I though CoD was non-Steam when it was released?

Mr. Master, I play CloD exclusively "offline". Steam "says" I'm logged in offline. Please let me know if you think I've been deceived and I'm actually ONLINE when they tell me I'm OFFLINE. Are they logging my usage when I'm offline?

Cloyd

These games don't really compete with each other. It's a small market. If one sells well it just feeds sales for the others.

The design of BoS was aimed at broad appeal. I guess that means casual gamers only, or casual gamers + simmers. I would think broad appeal is easier said than done or every game would be a smashing success. It could be that the BoS design simply missed its mark and didn't achieve that lofty goal.

Will be interesting to see what 1CGS does with BoS.

Flush it like the turd it is?

This is from a review of Comanche 4 released in 2001:

"NovaLogic made it clear as development of Comanche 4 was nearing completion that it was slanted to mass market appeal, that is, Comanche 4 would be more of a helogame than a helosim. It was dubbed "Action Shooter in the Sky" and has been designed to allow quick access to the pilot's seat. Comanche 2 and 3 were efforts to reach the level of simulation that would please the hardcore sim crowd; these were met with mixed criticism. NL knows that for every simulation player who takes avionics minutiae such as reversed collective seriously there are 500 casual gamers who don't know an EFAMS from a FARP and just want to fly through fast-paced mission and "blow stuff up". NL is banking that they can sell more copies of an action helogame than a simulation that would delight even the grumpiest grognard. As I said before, I'm pretty sure NovaLogic knows what they are doing."

Sound familiar? There was no Comanche 5.

This is from a review on MS Flight in 2012:

"Earlier this year, one last attempt was made to push a Microsoft-branded flying experience onto the masses. Unfortunately, Microsoft Flight was a pared down abomination of the highest order, unsure of what it wanted to be and, therefore, satisfying none. Admitting defeat, Flight was pulled last August and anything to do with keeping virtual planes in virtual skies was marched out of Microsoft’s doors for good."

It is really really really hard to make a flight sim/game for the masses.

I hope not. I hope they move back towards the simmers with a traditional campaign, or the ability for the community to build traditional in-game campaigns. I also think that's a safer bet.

I would think moving towards the gamers is higher risk as that is largely uncharted territory. Also, they'll lose even more simmers. And I doubt they can satisfy both. Mass appeal flight sims are as rare as hens teeth.

I remember that moment....I knew a guy working at MS who was close to the development team....he ended up leaving MS just before they axed that team...he was there ostensibly to do something simulation for them.

When MS exited that market after pioneering it for nearly what? 20 years?

I knew it was not necessarily the end of flight sims...but the beginning of what might be a long decline..

The Angry Birds crowd and Farmville eejits have taken the town over

Time to paraphrase one of my favorite Provocateurs .. H.L. Mencken

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the video gaming public"

Just think about it for a minute, no, really think. A GOAT simulator has more players than BoS.

Just to be clear, im not dissing the goat here.

Its so sad i cant stop laughing.