Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

I:R comparative performance with other GSG

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Imperator: Rome 9100 Bug Reports 3717 Suggestions 2404 User Mods 689 Tech Support 526 Multiplayer 56 After Action Report (AAR)
Show only dev responses
Thanks for the input. I would like to have access to other metrics but this is what I’ve got.

By comparing week after week and between games I am not trying to find out a concrete metric but performance evolution and to explain what is affecting it.

Factors that explain changes in peak players are very clear and we can agree with (DLCs, competition, etc..) but others are not (marketing, players burn out, boycotts, good design, etc…) and they are mere speculation.

Similar to a stock market analyst that observes the evolution of share prices.

PS: the share price does not reflect the perceived present/future value of the firm, you need the number of shares issued.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
IsaacCAT said:
Thanks for the input. I would like to have access to other metrics but this is what I’ve got.

By comparing week after week and between games I am not trying to find out a concrete metric but performance evolution and to explain what is affecting it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I completely understand.

It just that some look at the peak numbers and think thats the total playerbase that is playing.
 
One day ahead of the weekly update, I want to share with you some wild speculation. Please bear with me, I will try to be concise.

I have been looking at the different peaks on the players high-resolution steam charts from steamdb.info site and one can observe three different peaks that correspond to the different time zones where most of the population that play PDX games lives: EUROPE, ASIA and USA. We could say that every week this pattern is repeated everyday:
  1. first low point of the day. Corresponds to the time when AMERICAN players entering the game are more than EUROPEAN players leaving the game (around 0:30 UTC depending on the game)
  2. lowest point of the day. Corresponds to the time when the ASIAN players start playing the game picking up from the AMERICAN players leaving the game (around 6am UTC depending on the game)
  3. first peak point of the day. Corresponds to the time more ASIAN players leave the game than EUROPEAN players enter the game (around 3pm UTC depending on the game)
  4. second peak point of the day. Corresponds to the time EUROPEAN players stop playing the game before the AMERICAN players start playing the game (around 7pm UTC depending on the game)
  5. third peak point of the day. Corresponds to the moment more AMERICAN players stop playing the game than starting it (around 3am UTC depending on the game)
If these hypothesis are correct, we can infer the fololwing from PDX games last week:

CAVEAT: all numbers should be taken in relative terms to compare game to game.

GameRegionTime between point 1 and 2
HOI IVAMERICAN region has 50% or more of total players
There are similar players in ASIA and EUROPE region		2h 30'
Correction: 5h
VICTORIA 3AMERICAN region has 65% or more of total players
There are more players in ASIA than EUROPE		2h 50'
Correction:6h40’
CK IIIAMERICAN region has 50% or more of total players
There are more players in EUROPE than in ASIA		6h 30'
StellarisAMERICAN region has 75% or more of total players
There are slightly more players in ASIA than EUROPE		8h 40'
EU IVAMERICAN region has less than 50% of total players
There are more players in EUROPE than in ASIA		6h
I:RAMERICAN region has less than 40% of total players
There are more players in EUROPE than in ASIA		5h 50' (very difficult to measure)

As an example, points represented in this week Vic3 chart:

1673369353853.png
Charts use UTC time
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
Good afternoon,

After the holiday period we are back to the average GSG 24h Peak players of the past 24 weeks (see updated OP second chart).

The GSG with more than 10,000 24h Peak players does not display Victoria 3 as this week 8,231 players are below the arbitrary limit of 10,000 and below the 8,458 24h peak players of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS. Whenever the game comes back above 10,000 24h Peak players I will plot it with the others.

The other top GSG games see a reduction of 24h peak players between 2% for Sid Meier Civ VI to the 13% of Stellaris and Crusaders Kings III.

1673450875357.png

​
I:R follows the same trend with a decrease of 15% from the previous peak.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
IsaacCAT said:
Good afternoon,

After the holiday period we are back to the average GSG 24h Peak players of the past 24 weeks (see updated OP second chart).

The GSG with more than 10,000 24h Peak players does not display Victoria 3 as this week 8,231 players are below the arbitrary limit of 10,000 and below the 8,458 24h peak players of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS. Whenever the game comes back above 10,000 24h Peak players I will plot it with the others.

The other top GSG games see a reduction of 24h peak players between 2% for Sid Meier Civ VI to the 13% of Stellaris and Crusaders Kings III.

I:R follows the same trend with a decrease of 15% from the previous peak.
Click to expand...
Yikes, Vic 3 is really not doing well.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Good morning,

This week the number of GSG 24h Peak players in Wednesday still declines from the 2022 Xmas peak to below the trendline (see OP updated chart).

However, the top most played GSG keep players, with some games increasing from last week: EU IV (+2%) and CK III (+1%). The top GSG that lose more peak players are Total War: Warhammer III (-4%) and Stellaris (-2%):

1674035739089.png

Imperator follows the overall trend falling this week (-6%).

Victoria 3 for those wishing to know also falls this week (-11,7%).
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
IsaacCAT said:
Good morning,

This week the number of GSG 24h Peak players in Wednesday still declines from the 2022 Xmas peak to below the trendline (see OP updated chart).

However, the top most played GSG keep players, with some games increasing from last week: EU IV (+2%) and CK III (+1%). The top GSG that lose more peak players are Total War: Warhammer III (-4%) and Stellaris (-2%):


Imperator follows the overall trend falling this week (-6%).

Victoria 3 for those wishing to know also falls this week (-11,7%).
Click to expand...
We can expect a decline on victoria 3 for some time. At least until they fix the biggest issues and players recover the trust on the developers.
I know for sure developers are working hard right now to get updates on the game. But it'll need quite a bit of love until it feels alive and the ai is not dumb.
Regarding imperator, sad but nothing new.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
juanen said:
We can expect a decline on victoria 3 for some time. At least until they fix the biggest issues and players recover the trust on the developers.
I know for sure developers are working hard right now to get updates on the game. But it'll need quite a bit of love until it feels alive and the ai is not dumb.
Regarding imperator, sad but nothing new.
Click to expand...
I have a very slim hope that I:R will be picked up by players someday without being actively developed by PDS.

The same as I think Vic3 will not change much its player base after 1.2.

Players have many options nowadays to choose what to play and niche games do not have big audiences. I do not think I:R or Vic3 are at fault, the prove is that many other very good games have less peak players.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Week 4 of 2023. The 24h peak players of GSG increase from last week. PDX games increase 2.4% while all the GSG increase only 1.25%.

The top GSG increase 24h peak players since last week. In fact, all PDX games increase their numbers with HOI IV having the biggest increase (+6,20%), followed by EU IV (+3,22%). Stellaris (+0,75%) and Crusaders Kings 3 (+0,36%) have a smaller increase.

1674665102540.png

I:R also experiments an increase of 24h peak players this week (+3,25%)

Sadly, Victoria 3 decreases 24h peak players from last week (-8,71%)
 
  • 7
Reactions:
Welcome to February 2023. This week the overall GSG 24h Peak players is still growing (+1,56%) and PDX GSG too (+2,10%), see updated OP chart.

The top 24h Peak Players GSG show a big decline in Sid Meier's Civilization VI series (-10,11%) followed by a slight decline of Stellaris (-1,98%). All other top GSG increase their numbers with CK3 gaining the most (+6,58%), followed by Total War: warhammer III (+5,76%), EU IV (+5,45%), Sid Meier Civilization V (+2,59%) and Hearts of Iron IV (+1,38%).

It is striking how resilient are these top GSG since we started our accounting eight months ago.

1675264021811.png


I:R decreases this week (-7,13%) 24h peak players but remains between two other praised GSG:

1675263889666.png


Victoria also decreases this week (-5,59%)
 
  • 3
Reactions:
R.Graymarch said:
Thanks. So basically, Victoria 3 is around 5k ?
Click to expand...
Yes. IMHO it is a great number for a very niche game.

As Johan said, the 24h Peak players number is not the total number of players of the game. It is better to compare its performance relative to their peers and not absolute numbers.

Looking at the Grand Strategy Games category of the steam DB, we could say that Victoria 3 is inside the 26 games that represent the 27,5% of the total 24h GSG player base, or tier 2 games.

7 top GSG accumulate 62,1% of all players
26 GSG accumulate 27,5% of all players
111 GSG accumulate 10,4% of all players

Another metric you can use to gauge the success versus expectations or the absoloscence of one game is the ratio of peak players / all time peak.

Victoria 3 is 9% in this ratio while Victoria II has a ratio of 23%.
CK 3 is at 16% while CK 2 is at 2%.
Hearts of Iron is at 52% while HOI III is at 7%
EUIV is at 41%
Stellaris is at 23%
I:R is at 13%

One could argue that Victoria 3 being so new is performing below the expectations. But this ratio is similar to another recent release not from PDX, Knights of Honor II: Sovereign that has a ratio of 15%.

1675271170985.png

​
PS: if you ask me what games have the highest ratio of 24h Peak Players / All time Peak (only games with All time Peak > 50,000) and release date:

HOIV: 52% 2016
Sid Meier Civ VI: 32% 2016
Stellaris: 23% 2016
Sid Meier Civ V: 21% 2010
CK III: 16% 2020
Total Warhammer III: 14% 2017
Victoria 3: 9% 2022
Total War: Three Kingdoms: 4% 2019
Humankind: 2% 2021
CK II: 2% 2012
Endless Space 2: 2% 2012
Total War: WARHAMMER 0,6% 2016
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth: 0,5% 2014

What is it with the year 2016?
 
Last edited:
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Well this ratio also has some drawbacks. CK2 was free for one week-end and I'm pretty sure that it drove a very short but very high peak which leads to current 2%. More recent games never had this. Also some old games were not released only on Steam when they were launched (Vic2 for example)

Also, it's interesting to judge vs peers but it's another metric. I'm sure any GSG studio prefer a game at 50k players (24h peak) even if it's half of the other GSG compared to a game at 1k when all competition is at half.

I still find interesting to have the week on week progression: there are some time effect (holiday season, new patch, promotion etc) but still

But I agree that no ratio is perfect and the data we have is quite limited anyway
 
  • 1
Reactions:
This week has seen a significative decline of GSG 24h peak players (-6,76%) from last week. PDX GSG as well (-5,01%)

The decline is spread to all games evenly and barren a major holiday like the chinese new year (last week) I do not know what has caused this decline of players today. The top seven are Stellaris (-8,16%), Crusaders Kings III (-6,84%), Total War: Warhammer III (-6,52%), Sid Meier Civilization VI (-5,74%), HOI IV (-2,67%), EU IV (-2,55%), Sid Meier Civilization V (-2,38%):

1675874353663.png

I:R decreases -3,57% from last week

Victoria 3 today starting their Beta test also declines -11,73% from last week.
 
  • 1
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I don't know if this was the reason for GSG performance, but Steam Next Fest was this week so there were a ton of upcoming game demos out to try. Not sure how many players participate in it or if it's enough to solely explain the difference, but could be a contributing factor.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
This week we have a big drop of 24h GSG players. Yesterday it was St. Valentine so that will explain it unless next week we confirm the low numbers.

Of the top games, the biggest loser is CK3 (-11,6%), it seems players interested in romance in the game are interested in romance in real life as well.

Followed by Total WAR: Warhammer III (-9,9%), EU IV (-8,46%), Sid Meier Civ V (-7,1%), Sid Meier VI (-7,0%) and Stellaris (-4,8%).

HOIV players were almost not affected by St. Valentine day (-0%) for reasons.

1676459869382.png

I:R has a decrease similar to the other games (-6,3%).

Victoria 3 has an increase from last week due to the beta 1.2 effect (+1,0%)
 
  • 6Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
Who could imagine this?
Even GSG gamers can have couples and enjoy valentine
(just joking ofc)

Now seriously, good news for Victoria 3. Hopefully this beta will stop the decrease on players
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Good day to all, the St. Valentine's effect from last week is confirmed and numbers are back to the average.

Top GSG show impressive numbers from Total War: Warhammer III (+45,47%) and Sid Meiers civilization VI (+33,52%). Warhammer III has had an update 2.4.0 on the 16th of February and CIV VI has an ongoing sale of 90% discount of the base game. The other games show more reasonable increases: CK III (+9,67%), EU IV (+9,26%), CIV V (+8,29%), Stellaris (+3,13%) and HOIV (+0,63%).

1677070447068.png


I:R recovers this week as well (+12,65%)

Victoria 3 keeps up the beta momentum breaking the downward trend from other weeks (+3,56%) but still remains below top GSG level. Let's wait until 1.2 drops out off beta to see what happens.
 
Last edited:
  • 6
Reactions:
  • 1
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back