Helldivers player engagement collapsing

[Neversummer]

Not surprising who ever thought to go 5 month without no new enemy faction needs to be fire.

The monthly warbond (battlepass) is cool but dam we should’ve received a new enemy faction in its 3rd month heading to its 5th month since release & no new major update that adds new planets, new mission or new enemy factions is pretty dumb when other games have major update every 2.5-3 month

Also there no endgame I’m lvl 100+ & got essentially everything & there’s nothing that drives me to log in back into the game till there’s a new enemy faction or major update.

They need add a new enemy faction, transmog, end game mode, challenges/camos for weapon & armor like Destiny/COD, weapon attachments, new missions & it has to release every 2.5-3 month not every 5-6 month that’s suicide

 

[Evilnemesis8]

The game has sold 12 million at 40 dollars and is already in profit. I don’t think Sony and Arrowhead expected 12 million lifetime sales let alone in 3 months.

All Arrowhead needs to do is release the third faction and stop messing around with weapon balancing. Its a PvE game and is irrelevant.

Not surprising who ever thought to go 5 month without no new enemy faction needs to be fire.

Agree with this. Folks choose to see the line going down and say things are doomed. I see it the other way.
No new content, plenty of issues and even a bit of backlash here and there and the game can still hang around the Top 10-15 all these months later. Shows that there's people still buying the game and/or folks are actually spending money inside the game and engaging with the content that there is available.

It is fairly rare for any game to stay for months within the Top 10-15 on the Steam global list even for GaaS(not named CS2/Apex/PUBG). The game is still clearly making a lot of revenue on a daily/weekly basis, and it is doing the same on PSN.

 

[Danja]

They need a proper content drops, too much unnecessary lip service the past month without of substance behind it.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Agree with this. Folks choose to see the line going down and say things are doomed. I see it the other way.
No new content, plenty of issues and even a bit of backlash here and there and the game can still hang around the Top 10-15 all these months later. Shows that there's people still buying the game and/or folks are actually spending money inside the game and engaging with the content that there is available.

It is fairly rare for any game to stay for months within the Top 10-15 on the Steam global list even for GaaS(not named CS2/Apex/PUBG). The game is still clearly making a lot of revenue on a daily/weekly basis, and it is doing the same on PSN.

Those games only get that consistent engagement because they are F2P.

PUBG wasn't free to play until year 4. PUBG was 30 dollars at launch. It came to mobile 3 months after launch and then consoles about a year later. Then got a next gen patch in 2020.

Helldivers not being on PS4 really REALLY hurts it. Helldivers not being on MacOS or mobile really hurts it. A PS4 port would bring engagement up significantly, but I'm sure they have a roadmap, but they weren't expecting the game to be this popular and certainly not this quickly.

Even if the game could run on PS4, Sony probably doesn't want to encourage people to stay on PS4 longer at this point. There is diminishing value a PS4 port.

The game needs a dedicated mobile team and I'd say a dedicated MacOS team.

 

[anonpuffs]

It’s a co op game, it did gangbusters but it has no chance at long legs with the initial numbers.

Disagree. It has a niche. The problem is the studio bit off a little more than it can chew and the lack of solid content updates is throttling interest. People will be back when the 3rd faction drops and the game is a bit better balanced.

 

[Entropi]

I believe that would be normal for a 4-month-old game. I stopped playing for a bit due to other games and their constant weapon nerfing, but I came back last week, and I find it as enjoyable as it was during the launch window.

 

[xollowsob]

Is player engagement dropping on Steam only, PSN only or both?

 

[Vertigo]

This game has different challenges ahead… different from others that still exist or have come and gone.

While a PvE co-op extraction shooter it has less in common with the Destiny model and more in line with a BR and… Fortnite. I’ll get to that…

They’re not going to add dungeons and a campaign. They cannot monetize that way or with an expansion to sell. The game is live warfare. You can’t really approach it as such.

Clearky skins and weapons won’t move the needle much either for their bottom line or players. That’s not a reason to keep playing…

It’s also NOT a PvP game or features such a component. PvP adds near infinite replay-ability due to its competitive element. This is not an endorsement to add PvP even tho I would 100% play it if that happened.

But what they CAN take from Fortnite is world state changes; significant ones that reinvent the game almost yearly.

And I do not think they are ready for that. Not yet. And despite the 12 million plus sold; they’re also going to need a revenue stream to continue to keep the train moving.

But you never know. The engine they built the game with is now extinct. They could just make a sequel instead for all we know.

Good luck to them tho. I still find this game in uncharted waters and to be something pretty unique unto itself.

 

[anonpuffs]

This game has different challenges ahead… different from others that still exist or have come and gone.

While a PvE co-op extraction shooter it has less in common with the Destiny model and more in line with a BR and… Fortnite. I’ll get to that…

They’re not going to add dungeons and a campaign. They cannot monetize that way or with an expansion to sell. The game is live warfare. You can’t really approach it as such.

Clearky skins and weapons won’t move the needle much either for their bottom line or players. That’s not a reason to keep playing…

It’s also NOT a PvP game or features such a component. PvP adds near infinite replay-ability due to its competitive element. This is not an endorsement to add PvP even tho I would 100% play it if that happened.

But what they CAN take from Fortnite is world state changes; significant ones that reinvent the game almost yearly.

And I do not think they are ready for that. Not yet. And despite the 12 million plus sold; they’re also going to need a revenue stream to continue to keep the train moving.

But you never know. The engine they built the game with is now extinct. They could just make a sequel instead for all we know.

Good luck to them tho. I still find this game in uncharted waters and to be something pretty unique unto itself.

Yeah tbh i think helldivers 3 is when the real magic happens. They have a real solid proof of concept but it needs way more investment. Like imagine a live service with an organic campaign like they're doing but with full cinematic story elements that drop every two weeks or a month (doesn't have to be crazy, just like a 2-3 min cinematic recap and look ahead), and better production values on the technical/engine side of things. They already do the news reels but like imagine something like they do with the TI dota recaps.

They just need to staff up. Like 3-400 people, and get some more people with solid engine dev experience.

 

[Yurinka]

What a drama queen, it isn't collapsing at all. It's performing normally, slowly going down to achieve a more normal numbers but still better than the average games. Top 13 in best sellers right now and top 10 for last week (counting F2P games and Steamdeck, counting only paid games is higher).

As they keep improving and specially adding cool stuff, like when adding the leaked vehicles, enemy factions and new stratagems things will improve.

 

[Vertigo]

Yurinka’s damage control pr aside. Yesterday’s peak was 70k. Engagement is without question collapsing and not slowly. How long numbers are outside of that peak is concerning. In just one day the 30 day avg concurrent dropped 4k players. The decline is steep.

Now the question is how low will it go before a possible turnaround. If that happens. It could also go into oblivion tbh without content delivered timely but you want to be a bit optimistic.

 

[Muddasar]

Yurinka’s damage control pr aside. Yesterday’s peak was 70k. Engagement is without question collapsing and not slowly. How long numbers are outside of that peak is concerning. In just one day the 30 day avg concurrent dropped 4k players. The decline is steep.

Now the question is how low will it go before a possible turnaround. If that happens. It could also go into oblivion tbh without content delivered timely but you want to be a bit optimistic.

What damage control? Why does Steam player count even matter? Not to forget it doesn’t include PS5 players.

Helldivers isn’t a F2P game which is dependent on player popularity and micro-transactions to keep it afloat. Not to forget player count would be higher if it was F2P.

It’s a 40 dollar game which has sold 12 million in several months and already in huge profits.

Sony and Arrowhead didn’t expect Helldivers to sell 12 million in its entire lifetime let alone several months.

If Helldivers 2 was a single player game which sold 12 million would we be looking at player count?

This game is not in the same category as F2P games so stop measuring it with the same yardstick.

You are talking nonsense.

 

[Loy310]

It needs pvp mode.

 

[Muddasar]

It needs pvp mode.

No it doesn’t.

It needs to continue selling copies at 40 dollars.

Player count is irrelevant.

 

[Yurinka]

It needs pvp mode.

No, the success of the game partly comes from its non-competitive coop only approach. All the game is pretty much built about it.

Yurinka’s damage control pr aside. Yesterday’s peak was 70k. Engagement is without question collapsing and not slowly. How long numbers are outside of that peak is concerning. In just one day the 30 day avg concurrent dropped 4k players. The decline is steep.

Now the question is how low will it go before a possible turnaround. If that happens. It could also go into oblivion tbh without content delivered timely but you want to be a bit optimistic.

You have no idea what you are talking about, gaming flatearther Sony hater.

This is the most successful launch window ever for a Sony game ever and is on track to continue doing it so for a while.

In the first 3 months sold 12M copies + many addons (Super Citizen Edition/upgrades, Warbonds, cosmetics from the rotating store) with an stellar, extraordinary user retention. Obviously at a lower pace, but will continue doing so for years and pretty likely will become the 2nd best selling SIE game ever after Destiny 2.

The CCUs of all games go down over time, until in case of GaaS they somewhat stabilize at some point. It's still too high for the type of game it is (coop, not competitive, so will continue going down). Important updates which add substantial game improvements or highly awaited content temporarily improve these numbers and once the peak ends in some very rare cases also the stabilized floor.

At this point many players no longer play daily as did before because they unlocked almost everything, so mostly come back every few days to collect major mission content and new warbond stuff, or only play daily a moment to make the daily mission. Meaning these players contribute less to the CCU but are still there and still pay for Warbonds and so on (in fact they will pay more now because having spent hundreds of hours they are more likely to unlock some stuff by paying than by unlocking it).

 

[Vertigo]

Update:

The trend continues…. Helldivers is now struggling to surpass 70k concurrent and its 30day peak concurrent avg is just under 64k.

Comparatively Destiny 2 has a 30-day concurrent avg 72k for that same time period while also available and not including its performance on both Epic and windows launchers for pc.

 

[BLAZE]

Update:

The trend continues…. Helldivers is now struggling to surpass 70k concurrent and its 30day peak concurrent avg is just under 64k.

Comparatively Destiny 2 has a 30-day concurrent avg 72k for that same time period while also available and not including its performance on both Epic and windows launchers for pc.

I think the addition of the third faction will help, and if that doesn't work and the game continues to sink, make it F2P

 

[Yurinka]

I think the addition of the third faction will help, and if that doesn't work and the game continues to sink, make it F2P

Yes, content like a third faction, new cool stratagems, new mission and vehicle types, a good rebalance buffing many weapons to make them more fun, weapon customization, adding extra/more generous rewards, double XP weekends... there's a lot of content they can add that could bring back many players.

And well, to bring more new players it's too early to make it F2P: before that they can have discounts, free weekends, two or three price cuts.

I mean, right now countinues top 19 in the Steam top sellers and that is counting Steamdeck F2P games and hot releases that will quickly drop from the ranking. It's still selling great, so it's too early to drop its price or make it F2P.

Update:

The trend continues…. Helldivers is now struggling to surpass 70k concurrent and its 30day peak concurrent avg is just under 64k.

Comparatively Destiny 2 has a 30-day concurrent avg 72k for that same time period while also available and not including its performance on both Epic and windows launchers for pc.

Yes, but Destiny 2 is one of the most successful GaaS ever and coming from one of the maybe top 3 most prestigious FPS teams ever. With an insane budget and team behind adding huge updates every year.

Helldivers 2 is a way more humble game from a way less known dev and with way less aggresive user retention techniques. A game that had a stellar launch and still is going back from the launch peak 4 months after launch (great user retention, normally games drop from that in a few weeks).

Pretty likely it will continue slowly going down until it stabilizes at more than healthy around 40K+ CCU daily peaks on Steam. And will keep more or less there during years, having peaks with significative additions of new content, features or fixes.

 

[Vertigo]

A modest 40k peak for its bottom line wouldn’t be terrible. And understanding what the game does is paramount is judging its retention. And it is unlike most games in design to say they need to do this or that etc…

Do we think Sony has stepped in with more major funding for Arrowhead to keep this going? I think this would’ve happened already for future content delivery.

They shouldn’t be quiet about it either I think. Announce and date future major content.

Their service model will also need to be revisited once “boxed” sales exhaust. Which means what? Free expansion content and updates while trying keeping $40 price? Fallout tries that…. Eh.

Edit: I say “bottom line” in that opening above since those are the players most likely to engage with warbonds and most likely to be monetized for cosmetics and content in the future. So it does matter for their current business plan ya know. This stuff definitely isn’t unimportant.

 

[Plextorage]

It needs to continue selling copies at 40 dollars.

Most important.

Player count is irrelevant.

Less important. Basically meaningless Look at HIFI Rush and its famous 3 million players. And what happened in the end? 3 million players didn't bought a game