When it comes to Star Wars: Battlefront, there’s no doubt that the game looks sensational, sounds like a Star Wars game and runs as smooth as butter. The gameplay isn’t bad either, although there’s a solid complaint about the amount of content.
But if you’re playing on PC, there’s a bigger problem. The community there simply isn’t big enough for a AAA shooter. In fact, it’s about as big as some free-to-play games on Steam.
The figures come courtesy of the Player Stats Network, which has been running the server figures on Battlefield games for years now. It’s because of them (and DICE/EA’s API, of course) we know that there are still thousands of people (on consoles, anyway) enjoying Battlefield Hardline.
It’s because of them that we know that Battlefield 4 on PC is almost as large as the crowd playing on PS4 and Xbox One. It’s almost as big as the crowd playing Star Wars: Battlefront, actually, which at the time of writing isn’t particularly large at all.
Those figures don’t look terrible — having over 100,000 people on PS4 is nice, and the Xbox One figures seem reasonably healthy. But those PC figures are a little low given how fresh Battlefront still is, and it doesn’t get better when you draw comparisons with other games on PC.
Let’s not think about the twin behemoths of CS:GO or Dota 2, the rampant success of Fallout 4 or the latent fanbase for Team Fortress 2 that never seems to die.
But let’s think about those current and peak player figures. The SWBStats page refreshes approximately every five minutes, so it’s a pretty reasonable snapshot of the player base at any given time. At the time of writing, it was a touch under 18,000 with a peak of just over 34,000, as can be seen above.
That’s about on par with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which isn’t the kind of news to inspire a great deal of confidence these days. It’s the same territory that The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Rocket League and Grand Theft Auto 5 operates in — which says an awful lot about how many people are still playing GTA 5, and just where Battlefront is at right now.
It’s also around the same amount of people who are consuming Clicker Heroes on a regular basis. Clicker Heroes, a free-to-play casual game that relies on the simple feedback loop of rewarding you for clicking.
The latest AAA Star Wars game is as big on PC as this. A game that abuses human weakness by playing on the psychology of rewards. The numbers get bigger. The rewards flow in. The coins flow in. The upgrades arrive. The numbers continue to get bigger. And all you need to do is click.
Not a great sign for Star Wars, is it?
Comments
34 responses to “Star Wars Battlefront’s PC Fanbase Is On Par With Clicker Heroes”
Maybe the numbers will pick up if they can release a campaign/bot-mode patch.
(Who am I kidding? It won’t be a patch, it’ll be DLC.)
Honestly, I have a puppy and fallout 4. I’m busy.
Then when you add in the split between geographic regions, you see why a lot of PC games in Australia with Star Wars Battlefront are getting shunted onto US servers. The numbers don’t seem to be there on PC.
I’m on PS4 and it is quick as a flash to get into all the game modes at the moment. That is so key to the success of multiplayer games. I am still scarred from Evolve where the matchmaking could take 30 minutes to find a game. Ghost town.
Evolve on PC – http://i.imgur.com/OzOKMGl.png Ouch.
It can be a nightmare to get a game of Evolve on PS4 too.
So are these world stats? Or NA?
I love me some Clicker Heroes. I’m finally able to clear Zone 700, and the new addition of mercenaries you can send on missions adds some fun!
I’m not playing Battlefront though.
700! My highest level reached so far is zone 232. According to steam I’ve been playing for 158 hours, I’m on my 23rd ascension with 200 hero souls and I still can’t get enough money to buy Dread Knight.
In regards to Battlefront, I’ve only just started playing it, and it seems pretty good so far.
Gawd, a fresh update? i thought i’d escaped the lure of this game forever……..
ps – highest zone 3178, 313 ascensions. 😛
If they just add bots to these multiplayer only games then at least worst case scenario you will get to actually play the game if there are no actual real players to fill the spots.
Yeah it’s a bit of a worry, I thought there’d be at least a few more on PC considering how sexy this game looks with all the bells and whistles turned out. I’ve noticed a few times that I can’t find any games of DropPod, it just puts me by myself in an empty server. 🙁
Tempted to pick up the PS4 version so I can get a few more games in.
Yer but it’s a terrible game for the price. Bells and whistles means nothing when the only decent gameplay mode comes with 4 maps.
Yeah it’s definitely a little short on quantity, but I’m a sucker for pretty pixels and Star Wars 😀
let’s face it PC users keep getting burned by EA so they’ve stopped buying game’s, why play a game proned to crashing
This is the most likely reason + Origin. No one wants to use Origin.
i dont mind origin, its no where near as bad uplay or G4WL, its actually more inline just with EA titles.
Haha yeah its OK, but seriously, why do these publishers bother? Just put it on Steam where everyone is and call it a day.
Steam has enough consumer power.
I dont buy EA games due to origin and screwing us customers over. If they wanted More pc players, allow our own dedicated servers where we can mod it to what we like, like the good old days or unreal tournament etc
Damn, hoped to buy this when it goes on sale, not tempted to buy atm with the amount of content.
Hope it still has players then!
I’m blaming Fallout 4 because it’s such a time killer that I just don’t have anymore to invest in Battlefront. Otherwise I’d be all over this game like a rash, but sadly can’t see this lasting due to the lack of content.
It oddly reminds me of David Hasselhof’s music career launch live on American TV being thwarted because people were too busy watching O.J Simpson getting chased by the police. In other words they couldn’t be hassled with the Hoff.
isnt battlefront an Origin title though, meaniong that if brought at retail you play through origin instead of steam. if you ny on steam you still load up origin, but if brought on origin then steam isnt part of the package
That’s why they’re not using steam stats for Battlefront. That argument could be said for GTA V though. I usually play it on PC about once or twice a week but don’t have it on steam as I bought a retail copy (goes straight through Rockstar Social Club).
Is it possible that it’s just a terrible game for the price and a lot of PC gamers see no value in it? Most definitely the case for me – was excited for it originally but as more information came out like 4 maps for the only interesting gameplay mode, no compelling single player campaign, no bots, no choice on servers (matchmaking can diaf). I’ll keep my money thanks.
I’m finding it hard not to succumb to buying, because it’s Star Wars, and I love that universe so much. I’m trying hard to vote with my wallet, that releasing this amount of content at a premium price is not good enough. I guess I know my vote doesn’t count for jack, but it’s a principle I guess.
Standard amount of content for a multiplayer shooter. Buy it. It’s awesome.
Yep, not surprised at all with this, I played beta for about 2 hours and that was enough to know what to expect, a 11/10 beautiful game with all the actual depth of a melted ice skating rink. My work mates gave me crap over that opinion for months, saying that I haven’t played the real game and it will be awesome. Was vindicated recently when 4/5 of them now tell me I was right and they regretted paying full price for it.
oh I just repeated what you said, mostly. I think the beta was on for too long.
I played the beta and got super hyped. Then Fallout 4 happened.
Maybe the beta was a little too much; I sure feel like I played enough to get the gist of the game and now my urge to play it isn’t there like it was…
All this tells me, is no wonder devs concentrate on consoles, and PC users get shitty ports – just can’t beat that market.
Even those console numbers aren’t great. People just aren’t playing it.
I’d love to think this means that people are finally getting bored of the multiplayer shooters but there’s a much more likely reason for the poor numbers. They released when everyone’s busy playing Fallout 4. Combine that with the fact they had an open beta a few weeks ago and people find it pretty easy to get into Fallout 4 over playing more of Battlefront.
This is why most devs don’t do demos anymore and why a public beta event to drum up hype is actually a bad idea. If your release is close to another big title who hasn’t given a beta then guess which game people are wanting to try?
I’m curious how much of the fanbase from the first two games came across for this one. The first two had a very strong community, with clan servers that were still going until Gamespy was turned off as well as a reasonably prolific mapping community.
I know it’s a cliche complaint at this point, but no server browser or ability to have dedicated private servers (I believe, anyway) has made it a lot less attractive to older players of the series.
Give me a Dark Forces style singleplayer campaign, and I might actually buy your pew-pew game.
CSGO , LoL and DOTA 2 exist on PC so people don’t exactly want to play anything else.