Helldivers II har mistet 90% af spillerne

Helldivers II har mistet 90% af spillerne

Vi lever i en tid hvor spil pludselig, relativt ud af det blå, går "viralt", på samme måder som videoer på sociale medier. Om det er Among Us, Palworld, Pokémon Go eller sågar Wordle, så strømmer millioner til pludseligt, men det sker så sandelig ikke altid at de bliver hængende.

Som Paul Tassi ovre hos Forbes har noteret, så har Helldivers II mistet omtrent 90% af sine spillere siden lanceringen i starten af februar. Tassi noterer at det ikke er helt det samme som når singleplayer-spil mister deres spillere, eftersom succesfulde live service-titler har brug for vedholdende, kontinuerlig interesse og engagement for at fungere.

"There is always some annoyance when playercount declines are brought up in the gaming space, but in this case, it's a fairly significant story. We're not talking about Starfield losing 90% of its players since launch as a single player game. Rather, this is Helldivers 2, which was meant to be Sony's big proof of concept it can make a big impact in the live space. But a few months after launch, the game has seen extremely steep declines, and despite new additions and galactic war plot turns, nothing is reversing course."

Det skyldes blandt andet at spillet er peaket på PC med 458.709 spillere samtidig, og at der i dag er cirka 45.000 online dagligt, der placerer spillet udenfor top 10 på Steam.

Tassi noterer også at der ikke er blevet afsløret nogen større opdatering på vej, eller sågar en udvidelse, men har slår samtidig fast at Helldivers II er langt fra en fiasko, men at det ikke er givet at det har en fremtid som live service:

"I am not calling Helldivers 2 a failure. Its big launch should still be considered a hit and it surpassed all expectations back then. But this is not a trajectory you want to see for a live, ongoing game. The game has not been among PlayStation's top 10 most played list in a long time, as that list remains almost entirely years-old live hits, Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA Online, Overwatch 2 and Roblox. But Sony wants their own live game to be big on that platform. It was always bigger on Steam, but it's declined significantly with no signs of recovery there."