Whether its a quality issue, or people are getting tired of its particular brand of zombie survival, DayZ appears to have seen a sharp, rapid drop in its player base over the last few months.
A thread over on Reddit points out the waning popularity of DayZ, based on its reported player base on Steam Charts. At one stage the game was constantly in Steam’s top 10, though it’s been some time since it occupied this lofty space.
Going by Steam Charts, DayZ had respectable numbers up until March of this year, after which it saw a sharp fall, going from 29,000 peak players to 13,000 in May. For a game that has had a relatively stable base (including the expected decline from release) since early 2014, it’s quite a dramatic change.
Discussion on DayZ‘s subreddit suggests a lack of new content and poor performance are to blame, with the biggest drops coinciding with patches 0.54 and 0.55.
We’ve just had a bunch of big PC releases recently — GTA V and The Witcher 3 being the standouts — which could certainly have eroded DayZ‘s player base. Perhaps it will recover in time… but if it doesn’t, it could be the first signs that we’re starting to grow bored of open-world zombie games.
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12 responses to “DayZ Has Lost Over Half Its Players Since March 2015”
Let’s also look at the fact that patch .55 sucks arse and most of us are waiting for patch .56 before we start playing again…
Then we got the news they’re skipping .56 and going to .57. Which will be a longer period of time *sigh*
DayZ’s stats are up and down, but this is a bit of an alarmist article, the games succesful, it’s not going anywhere and its population fluctuates heavily dependant upon the patch. Check out the pop stats for when the trucks came in, it wildly fluctuated then.
Two words… Breaking Point.
I prefer Point Break
Only the original.
I, as well, prefer BP.
They took too long making/patching the game during its buzz phase, this is a RULE not to break when you have a game like this. I still blame the ARMA engine overall, what a turd, sure its pretty and decent scale but has so many issues..
BIS really is falling behind in the engine department, they need realistic collision physics, underground functions, moldable terrain, clipping fixes, and rethink the UI… No small task…
Wasn’t a last straw, but seeing the ‘plan for the year’ they had; pretty much just had me step back from the game until it hits full release. If anything the resources behind H1Z1 might bring me back to the genre eventually, but we’ll see.
The downside to Early Access, alot of player will stop playing before the game is even finished and I feel this number will keep dropping. Then all these people will remember DayZ as that really buggy zombie game.
Well that’s what it is for me. The game was gifted to me and none of us really play it anymore because it’s so bad and taking a very long time. I know games take a long time to make and all but, the progress on this game seems too slow.
I fully realised i was signing up for an early access experience, but in the last 19 months, there has been absolutely nothing of substance. the game is still a glitchy mess, and any updates made to it, i honestly wouldnt even call content updates. all the updates seem to be cosmetic.
at this rate i honestly dont see the game ever leaving early access… and if it does, it will be for legal reasons. the game will still be an absolute mess. performance as well is absolutely woefull…
I love the game. But I would have to say that I come back to it A.) because there is nothing else worth playing in the genre, B.) I am a creature of habit and know the map and what to expect. All in all this has been a game without a good project leader, goals, or game focus. Is it a survival game with zombies in it, or is it a zombie game in which you have to survive? See.. that alone makes a difference! Then you know when and how to focus.
I think this was a game started by a bunch of gamers that had no clue how to progress into the game market. They ended up flush with money and then realized that the engine was a piece of crap (which someone already mentioned). So they did what any other undisciplined, over financed people would do… they drank beer and focused on creating dresses, derringers, stun wands, tire irons, and a slew of other “fun” torture implements. Why? To say they are making progress and “doing stuff.”
Look at what H1Z1 has done in less time. Yes I know… apples and chainsaws… but understand my point. They had a decent engine, professional development team, created a really really base game (decent map, small amount of items, BUILDING SYSTEM, working zombies, and then….then… are expanding. Do they have issues.. yep… does the game become boring until more stuff is added.. yep.. but is the game continuing to expand… YEP. Oh.. and they created servers that are PVE only. IF you don’t want that fine.. don’t play on the server… but it is there for those that do. Imagine being able to play the game and progress for longer then it takes for some azzclown to zip up behind you and arrow you to the head when you just spawn.
I think a while back they should have either returned the money, or have said “We will be giving a free copy of our game to everyone that purchased this mess when we have found a better engine to move forward with.” That would have solved the problem. Then define what they are. (survival/zombie apocalypse) and then hire a business team that limits the wasted time and effort and focuses on producing game advancing content, not “seemed fun at the time” zero-addition content.
“it could be the first signs that we’re starting to grow bored of open-world zombie games.”
No, actually, maybe it’s the first signs that we are fed up of shitty games that barely function, yet have been in Early Access for longer than working games have entered the development stage and were finished. This piece of shit game has been fed millions of dollars, and has had years to grow, and still plays like it was made by a small team of high-school students as a project for computer class.
First of all, They should have been using ARMA3 engine (or any other engine) right from the start. They are wasting so much time just trying to get basic things to work. They would be completely done by now if they were using unreal or cryengine. Just saying. Also If they were more transparent with their development, perhaps the community would have more patience with delays and oversights. No one is perfect but at least tell people whats going on. And be honest about everything. I’m so tired of these cryptic updates. Every time they add more items they have to cut down on zombies or other things because of the shitty 32 bit engine not being able to handle the memory. IDK maybe fix that first before adding in 10 more pointless items like a hay hook? Just my opinion.
Perhaps many people are still playing the mod on ARMA 2 rather than the standalone game itself?
Going by Steam Statistics to track players for the entire DayZ community cannot be done, at least not now. These statistics are only referring to the Standalone version of the game. People tend to forget that there’s around 20 different, active DayZ communities, and those gamers have been moving back and forth between Arma II: DayZ Mod, Arma 3, and Standalone, or onto Epoch, Overwatch, Origins, etc, or even have started playing DayZ Arma 3 -a port of the DayZ mod by Zoombies. The bulk of the gamers that all flavors of DayZ are centered around 4-6 versions of the game.
DayZ 4 Life!