Captain Sierra Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 It has the same trend on the streams and youtube channels as well.. I am one of those that got burned out on it as well, so I definitely think it is possible that this is happening.This is one of the reasons I wish they did not drop resources as that would have added so much for long time players like me. I am sure contracts will help this as well though but would have been even better if they also added resources.+1 on resources. Bear in mind that everything that improves sandbox also effects Career, but not necessarily the other way around. While Harv's dev blog about development asymptotes says one thing, I'm well willing to bet they haven't even scratched the surface of what sandbox could be and they need to discover that and act on it, preferably sooner as opposed to later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyRender Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 This isn't really surprising. Few games experience major peaks of popularity in the post-holiday season. Sales-wise, January through April is pretty much the weakest period for video games across all mediums, with the numbers only really picking up around June (coinciding with summer vacation for US students). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJEN Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 (edited) Why is this thread even here?This is pretty much useless information. Do better steam numbers make or break the game for you?He's probably a troll. If not, he's just giving us information.*Yep, definitely a rude skeptic.people still play minecraft? o_OThis. Comment. Is...Somewhat offending and seems to contain bias. Edited February 20, 2014 by DJEN A mod combined my loose posts into one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 .24 will break all mods, most people will probably not update, and wait another three months for mods to be re-made. Those who will, will have to play vanilla.just like every update, and every update day the servers are overloaded because people keep hitting F5 in their browsers hoping to be the first to see the download link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I don't play using Steam and never cared about mods.I've never cared about how many attention craving kids want to have the entire world know that they've played a game for 500 hours, or 1500 hours. No need for Steam here. Sadly there's some interesting things that require a Steam account or I'd not have one, but I've by now decided to not buy anything any longer that requires either Steam and/or Paypal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 This is pretty much useless information. Do better steam numbers make or break the game for you?Lots of kids are so incapable of thinking for themselves that the numbers matter a lot to them. XXX is first on the popularity chart, so it's good, so I MUST have it. Daddy, where's your creditcard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalculusWarrior Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Trouble is, those kids then realize that you actually have to learn things in order to play, so they get bored quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merinsan Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 (edited) And the list goes on. Next in the list probably will be Kerbal Alarm Clock.I do hope so! I might go back to stock then!Sorry, that was so off topic. The reason numbers are going down is most likely because 0.23 was not a particularly big update. People have played what they could, and are waiting for the next update. And most of the long term players don't use steam (at least in my opinion)! Edited February 20, 2014 by Merinsan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceSphereOfDeath Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Trouble is, those kids then realize that you actually have to learn things in order to play, so they get bored quickly.The funny thing is, I'm probably a 'kid' in your eyes, yet I completely agree with you, our generation are stupid igronent morons who are entertained by watching small lights flash on and off in a pattern making it seem like it's rewarding, that's why I like KSP, the rewards ARE real, you used actual orbital mechanics, which are a ACTUAL USEFUL LIFE SKILL in certain areas of research, not just 'lol I blowded his braiwnz oot L0|_!'.I hate kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whatshtisthis Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 that's why I like KSP, the rewards ARE real, you used actual orbital mechanics, which are a ACTUAL USEFUL LIFE SKILL in certain areas of research, not just 'lol I blowded his braiwnz oot L0|_!'.Even if you barely go into orbit and stay on Kerbin like me(And probably many other), making planes and such is fun, be it recreating something from fiction/real life, or making the absolutely insane things on the ground. I love KSP's building system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arran Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Trouble is, those kids then realize that you actually have to learn things in order to play, so they get bored quickly.Actually, when i play KSP, i feel like a kid again, that had a huge box of lego for his birthday .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigcheecho Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Actually, when i play KSP, i feel like a kid again, that had a huge box of lego for his birthday ..However, it does require intelligence, like LEGO does to a certain extent. A scaringly large amount of kids from my generation are the ordinary "cawadoody" or "#lunch" person, who would ragequit in less than an hour of the demo, let alone the full game, let alone the game with the mods I use (FAR, TAC Life Support, RemoteTech, Kethane, KW, & Bargain Rocket Parts), let alone using those mods plus doing the calculations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxman Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 (edited) Trouble is, those kids then realize that you actually have to learn things in order to play, so they get bored quickly.The only flaw in that theory is that quite a few of us who got burned out have already been everywhere, built giant bases and so on. I felt like I could never get bored as well, but eventually it just did not give me the feeling of achievement or fun.This is why this game needs something for sandbox mode to give us at least a purpose for going somewhere and resources would do just that.Not everyone who get burned out on a game is a troll or a kid. Some of us have just reached the limit of what you can do in this game at the current state. Either we need some new parts that adds something like docking ports did for .18, a purpose to go somewhere or at least some massive optimization so that we can build bigger.Career mode like it is now adds nothing for a long time player like me.Edit: But anyways.. Not everything is bad I think. The contracts and NASA missions will definitely keep me busy for a while. I just think we need something addictive for the sandbox mode that will keep us busy far into the future. Edited February 20, 2014 by boxman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR4Y Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 The funny thing is, I'm probably a 'kid' in your eyes, yet I completely agree with you, our generation are stupid igronent morons who are entertained by watching small lights flash on and off in a pattern making it seem like it's rewarding, that's why I like KSP, the rewards ARE real, you used actual orbital mechanics, which are a ACTUAL USEFUL LIFE SKILL in certain areas of research, not just 'lol I blowded his braiwnz oot L0|_!'.I hate kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansun1 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 .24 will break all mods, most people will probably not update, and wait another three months for mods to be re-made. Those who will, will have to play vanilla.and how do you know it will break mods? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allmappedout Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Back on topic.........let's think about what the graphic is telling usJust because not everyone on the forum uses steam, you can certainly use the sample size to predict a trend amongst users. There's no evidence that people that use steam are any more or less dedicated to playing the game than people who download from the store. So, what could cause a drop? Well, a lot of things have been discussed - midterms, post-holiday blues...but what else? Well, 0.23 was released 17th of December. So that's a full 3 months ago. We can see a spike around the time that the new update came out, followed by a tapering off.This trend can be seen at other updates (0.22 October 13th, for example, produced a massive spike in users up to the main peak of over 10k users), and then it tapers off. Why? well of course there are many reasons as mentioned, but a lot of people who have played the game will have started a new save, done some new stuff, and now will have probably have done a lot of the things they want to do.There's always something new to do, but a lot of people are aware that it's an alpha and their work is temporary. 3 months ago is a fair while ago, and, even taking into account the break for the holidays, a lot of users will obviously be expecting, or anticipating, a new release in the relatively near future. Whether or not this happens is obviously based on Squad's timeline, but it's sensible to make the hypothesis.Furthermore, there are some other ephemeral assumptions we can make about the data. Since the period we are viewing it taking into account the Christmas period, and a steam sale, there's probably a fair few people who picked up the game, played it once or twice, and either didn't like it, or have other games they find more enjoyable. That's totally fine, as there will be players who don't love the game as much as others.However, from a statistical point of view, this will simply inflate the downward trend, as you have an inflated number of temporary users who all logged in in a similar timeframe, who then now aren't being accounted for.TL;DR - Everything goes in cycles, not everyone plays the game all the time, there's lots of factors at play, KSP is still going strong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisF0001 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Just as an example, I bought KSP from Steam originally, and played it from there until Steam helpfully updated it behind my back and broke all my mods. Then I bought it *again* from the KSP store and have been playing that version ever since, for hundreds more hours that Steam just won't be tracking... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazhat Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Not really. The figures for average players are not bad at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadweasel Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Steam just isn't a good metric to gauge one game's popularity, especially when the game is available through other channels as well.Most folks who know better will avoid the troubles that Steam creates for games like this (see the comment immediately previous to mine), but the big clincher is that Steam encourages an almost ADD attitude toward games. Not only does it make it oh-so-easy to just buy another new game to keep your attention for a while (YAY STEAM SALES!!), but there is also that popup that advertises even MORE new stuff as well.So I have to question why it's recommended to look at this graph as any kind of realistic indicator, when it's unlikely in the extreme that the players represented only play this ONE game through it. I'm sure the same pattern can be see with just about every other game.My primary point is: so what? Maybe KSP's play time is (currently) trending downward on Steam, but it occurs to me that the fickle attentions of the general gaming crowd is hardly a good barometer for the popularity of a game, nor for the fan support it continues to garner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyboy67109 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I have gone through steam only once. The other one million times was directly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMagic Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Just as an example, I bought KSP from Steam originally, and played it from there until Steam helpfully updated it behind my back and broke all my mods. Then I bought it *again* from the KSP store and have been playing that version ever since, for hundreds more hours that Steam just won't be tracking...That's one way to fix the problem. You can also just tell Steam not to keep the program up-to-date (it's in the game's properties menu). Or you can just copy the whole KSP folder out of its location and play it without launching Steam, you can even uninstall Steam if you really don't want it around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorThomas Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I've been wondering about KSP marketing. Is it all just viral/ word of mouth, or is Squad actively advertising the game? I don't know about Steam, don't go there, didn't get the game thru Steam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Grant Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I'm pretty sure the OP is just a troll trying to gig us all into replying.Honestly, I don't care how popular the game is. I get it for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadweasel Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I've been wondering about KSP marketing. Is it all just viral/ word of mouth, or is Squad actively advertising the game? I don't know about Steam, don't go there, didn't get the game thru Steam.I doubt they're doing heavy advertising, as the game is doing incredibly well all on its own momentum, and this from a game that isn't even at full release stage!Minecraft did the same. Never needed to advertise too much, and it garnered enough of a following to warrant a convention gathering here in Vegas, even before it went to Beta.Personally, I'm just fine with SQUAD not actively advertising heavily, because if they did, can you imagine what it would be like with each new release? We wouldn't be waiting for a couple of hours for the server to lighten up enough to let us download the thing; we'd be waiting DAYS.Speaking of which, I wonder if they're ever going to get updates working to the point where it's no longer necessary to download the whole flippin' thing all over again for each release... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuBisCO Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I don't play via steam, not for this game at least for I got it before steam and never ported it over to steam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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