I've been collecting ladder data since release, and I thought I'd share some player numbers data, now that 2 seasons are completed. Keep in mind that season 2 lasted less than half as long as season 1.
(1v1 is people that have played 1v1 games) (tpp is teams per player)
SEASON 1 SEASON 2 S1 -> S2 locale players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp us 979151 739745 3.14 628046 447889 2.70 (64.1%) (60.5%) (86.0%) eu 766497 613047 3.18 541202 405818 2.77 (70.6%) (66.2%) (87.3%) kr 477268 305122 2.15 221819 138922 1.92 (46.5%) (45.5%) (89.4%) sea 122299 95310 3.32 70238 50939 2.74 (57.4%) (53.4%) (82.5%) tw 134598 99661 2.49 48401 37365 2.47 (36.0%) (37.5%) (99.1%) ru 93249 76572 3.05 46813 36281 2.71 (50.2%) (47.4%) (89.1%) cn China has no season 1 data la Due to human error, I fucked the Latin America season 1 data up
This is the same format as the above table, but with season 1 data at the same duration as season 2. (just under 4 months into both)
SEASON 1 SEASON 2 S1 -> S2 locale players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp us 823799 610621 2.83 628046 447889 2.70 (76.2%) (73.3%) (95.5%) eu 621059 482833 2.79 541202 405818 2.77 (87.1%) (84.0%) (99.4%) kr 377317 235572 1.91 221819 138922 1.92 (58.8%) (59.0%) (100.6%) sea 102833 79127 3.00 70238 50939 2.74 (68.3%) (64.4%) (91.2%) tw 122434 89330 2.30 48401 37365 2.47 (39.5%) (41.8%) (107.2%) ru 73808 60129 2.78 46813 36281 2.71 (63.4%) (60.3%) (97.7%) cn China has no season 1 data la Due to human error, I fucked the Latin America season 1 data up
Below are graphs of players that have placed into a ladder, over time (days). Brown is season 1 and silver is season 2. I didn't start tracking this data until over a month into season 1, hence the missing part, but it's obvious where the graph would go tracking backwards.
Some of my numbers may feel a bit deceiving from those images (Europe), but there are clear trends when you look at others (Korea/Taiwan)
Here is the data I threw together regarding players with a certain number of games played. Take it with a grain of salt though, as I don't know the patterns of activity across a season (I can assume that fewer games are played as the season goes on, but I don't know the rate it changes at). Since season 2 is slightly less than half the duration of season 1, I'm using the following numbers:
Season 1 data is >= 100 games Season 2 data is >= 55 games
edit: my s1->s2 1v1 and teams/player percents were backwards, fixed it. edit2: I found some old s1 data, so LA's graph has some values to compare edit3: data of players with x amount of games edit4: season 1->2 data with an equal duration
The attrition is pretty huge. All of my RL friends quit too. This game is too difficult for them. It's pressure-filled instead of delivering an easy and fun experience.
Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
There are like countless achievements in sc2.
Most people just don't play any game for longer than a few months.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
While this may be true (and yes I know a lot of people that were weeded out as well), I actually feel that SC2 is the most rewarding game I've ever played!
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
- Clan Support - Replay with friends - Unranked automatching - Automated clan wars - Bnet automated tournaments - TeamLeague all-kill format (this would be so awesome!) - Embeded streams
Bnet right now is so boring, there is no sense of community or teamwork at all.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I've actually never understood, how unlocks can actually make you feel good or rewarded....and combine that with the toughness of most games nowadays, it feels like your getting stuff for free and you dont even have to try.Personally a lot of the rewarding experience actually comes from the toughness of a game and the satisfaction of beating a level.
And my rl friends only play team games...they dont even want to try 1v1, they say they want to get good at team games and then try 1v1, the grand total of their 1v1 games is 1 ladder game, dont know why the fear.
edit:I agree with pacifist, the unlocks, and get stuff for doing nothing kinda came up predominantly only in this gen.
can't believe that many ppl were weeded out, In US that is. I really hope blizz improves bnet 2.0 to lean towards more socializing honestly. I remember when i first started up SC2 and was like "no chat channels wtf" It is pretty lonely
but overall i just hope they continue to throw on more improvements to bnet to whoa gamers.
SC2 is easy to play but one of the hardest game to master. Lots of casual gamers enjoyed the game in the first 3 months but after that I think they started to get bored.
On July 28 2011 10:23 Wihl wrote: The problem for me is that I feel all alone when I play. It feels a bit like playing a really good AI.
I've found mixing a few hours of play in with an hour or two of stream watching keeps me feeling more a part of the community, rather than all alone in a game.
edit: Most of my friends have stopped playing also. Most of them only played for a couple of months, then went back to WoW, LoL, and HoN.
It's too hard for most people to see the reward of playing a lot. In other games you get guns, badges, or just the ability to top the scoreboard in a pub server for example. In SC2 you get... the same 50% win ratio you've gotten since you started playing, even if you are in fact playing vastly better players. Outside of portraits and a couple icons on your profile, there's nothing else to show for it.
the reward system is simply very different. in other games you play a lot and get in game rewards in a very material way. in starcraft you play a lot and get better as a player. your main prize is your own skill improvement.
On July 28 2011 10:29 Penecks wrote: It's too hard for most people to see the reward of playing a lot. In other games you get guns, badges, or just the ability to top the scoreboard in a pub server for example. In SC2 you get... the same 50% win ratio you've gotten since you started playing, even if you are in fact playing vastly better players. Outside of portraits and a couple icons on your profile, there's nothing else to show for it.
True:
In Dota you have a bad day you still get kills and socialise with friends. In Modern Warfare you have a bad day u still get kills, experience etc.. In SC2 you have a bad day you will waste hours getting no wins, screw up your ladder stats, where is the fun in that? Not to mention SC2 is so mentally exhausting, all this on a lonely battle.net.
Blizzard needs to make SC2 more of a social experience.
Glad the game is still relatively strong, it wasn't surprising to be honest, it just seems the guys who picked up the game, thought it looks interesting and just found it too hard have dropped out. I don't see me ever dropping out and stopping to play. StarCraft is still a passion for me to this day, the fire is still burning baby.
On July 28 2011 10:29 Penecks wrote: It's too hard for most people to see the reward of playing a lot. In other games you get guns, badges, or just the ability to top the scoreboard in a pub server for example. In SC2 you get... the same 50% win ratio you've gotten since you started playing, even if you are in fact playing vastly better players. Outside of portraits and a couple icons on your profile, there's nothing else to show for it.
True:
In Dota you have a bad day you still get kills and socialise with friends. In Modern Warfare you have a bad day u still get kills, experience etc.. In SC2 you have a bad day you will waste hours getting no wins, screw up your ladder stats, where is the fun in that? Not to mention SC2 is so mentally exhausting, all this on a lonely battle.net.
Blizzard needs to make SC2 more of a social experience.
in sc2 when you have a good day there are no bad teammates to bring you down, and when you have a bad day there are no good teammates to carry you.
I agree with everything said so far about the social experience. It needs some sort of presence because it feels invisible right now. Anything like the automated tournaments, game trackers, a ticker listing recent results from the top 200 or anything that gives you a sense that other people are playing the game.
I am one of those who did not play even a single ladder game in season 2, but I'm still definitely part of the SC2 community. I regularly watch the SC2 shows, major tournaments and even user streams here on team liquid.
I suspect there are many, many people like me out there. Starcraft 2 is so much more than just playing some games on the ladder.
Ehhh, srry to be the one to say it but this data does not mean there is less people playing Starcraft 2 its just that there are less people playing ladder.
For anyone familiar to games with ranked matches this is pretty normal as in a ranked environment there is a lot of pressure. By nature only the more dedicated people will be still playing ranked matches while the not so competitive(and in many cases the majority) will only play casual matches with friends.
I know a lot of people who spend all their SC2 time playing custom games with friends(and I don´t mean only casual stuff but 1v1 maps etcs) I am a victim of that myself, last season I played like 300 Koth maps with friends while I played like 50 ladder matches.
I guess all of this was to say that this doesn´t mean that this is not a really good indicator of the total fanbase of SC2(and as many have said some, even if they didn´t play much anymore they still follow pro matches)
Yes the social experience is really lacking imo. Coupled with the fact that SC2 is a very demanding game, no wonder a lot of people ( casuals) got filtered out.
It's so weird since bw and wc3 bnet gave such a social feeling too.
Until they add the social aspects, people will likely continue to leave. It does get tiring feeling like it's me vs the rest of the continent. Chat channels barely count as such, and clans still aren't in game. And if they are ever put in, I doubt they'll be implemented very well.
On July 28 2011 10:35 JiYan wrote: the reward system is simply very different. in other games you play a lot and get in game rewards in a very material way. in starcraft you play a lot and get better as a player. your main prize is your own skill improvement.
playing SC2 a lot of times feel like playing golf. Its very frustrating hitting balls in the sand, rough, or water, similar to playing bad, getting cheesed, ect. But its so damn satisfying when you get the ball in the hole!
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
- Clan Support - Replay with friends - Unranked automatching - Automated clan wars - Bnet automated tournaments - TeamLeague all-kill format (this would be so awesome!) - Embeded streams
Bnet right now is so boring, there is no sense of community or teamwork at all.
This is how I feel at the moment, watching streams and interacting on TL makes me feel like a part of the community, but when I go into a game, nobody talks and I'm grinding games over and over it gets a bit lonely.
I'd love to see some type of tournament format put in, where multiple people come together, play a semi-competitive friendly tournament and just chat and talk about the games afterward.
As many people said, the social aspect of bnet2.0 is lacking.
I was inactive half of the first season just cause it felt so lonely. I started playing again when they implemented Channels back in February I think. Grinding games all by yourself, getting smacked down harder and harder as you progress, with no big shiny achievements to show off, can only work for a casual player so long.
We need to keep this thread going, so blizzard people see this.
I can attest to the trends shown also - Of a group of about 13 or 14 mates that got the game after release only 4 or 5 of us play 1v1 regularly. Another couple regularly just play team matches, while another 2 or 3 exclusively play customs/co-op.
However, of that 14 or so players half have stopped altogether. Interestingly though, almost all of us still regularly watch streams and follow tournaments. Good for esports, not so great for the casual scene
If people think that adding more social options to bnet 2.0 will stop the 1v1 ladder exodus, then they are severely mistaken. The casuals are leaving 1v1 because it's a stressful environment and not everyone is up for it.
Most of the casuals are playing team games, it would be interesting to see the numbers for that.
On July 28 2011 11:23 Steveling wrote: We need to keep this thread going, so blizzard people see this.
I'm pretty sure they have 100% accurate numbers themselves, and may have attributed to their decision to merge the servers (in spite of all the reasons to have them together anyway).
I do believe there's been major dropoff in players. I'm in Diamond now, and was in Diamond a year ago, but I know for sure I'm a far better player than I was then.
On July 28 2011 11:47 snotboogie wrote: I do believe there's been major dropoff in players. I'm in Diamond now, and was in Diamond a year ago, but I know for sure I'm a far better player than I was then.
On July 28 2011 11:47 snotboogie wrote: I do believe there's been major dropoff in players. I'm in Diamond now, and was in Diamond a year ago, but I know for sure I'm a far better player than I was then.
so is everyone else...
Nah. Some people stay the same, like me. I might have gotten worse :b
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's not the traditional sense.
In call of duty I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better weapons.
In World of Warcraft I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better spells/abilities, more quest access, and more zones to go to. Massive amounts of content based on raising level.
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
I think this is a fair assessment - there is little tangible reward for improving (although we can all agree that there is huge satisfaction in playing better).
Talking to some of my friends, some of their frustrations for not 1v1ing more are: "I don't know how far I am away from promotion, if I knew I was close I might do it more" etc
"I don't know what I'm doing wrong/how to improve" - even with the brilliant help Day9 is providing, most of my bronze teamates think they are following his advice since they think about it in-game. However, they never analyse their replays so they miss the fact that they aren't actually doing it. Shared replays would make a PHENOMENAL difference here. I would definitely be able to get my friends to play more if I could go through some ways of improving their play with them via replay.
i also see many of my friends quitting the game.. so many started it (maybe 10) and im the only one left who play 1vs1 regulary and a friend just plays custom 1vs1 games..
i really would like some kind of clans implemented, with own clanchats and the possibility to do some kind of clanwar. i think its also very hard to find people to play with regulary.. when you beat some players on ladder you may ask for some regames, but the next day you wont hear of them anymore ^^
its also quite hard to find an active clan on TL or other pages - maybe you got some hints for that??
oh and i really love the idea of shared replays and analysis.. maybe a ingame forum/list where people can post replays (with filters for league ect) and other can comment what they did wrong
Crappy bnet 0.2 is mainly to blame here. Game launched with no chat channels, crappy console-based interface for a PC game, and no sense of community whatsoever.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's not the traditional sense.
In call of duty I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better weapons.
In World of Warcraft I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better spells/abilities, more quest access, and more zones to go to. Massive amounts of content based on raising level.
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
in sc2 you work hard so you get better at the game. in WoW you work hard so you get better at the game. In CoD you work hard so you get better at the game.
you can level in WoW and CoD with a 5 year old child or a bot on your account. You do not need to work hard.
I feel for all of the players who feel 'alone' with SC2, I went through the same thing after the first 3 months. IMO the key to really enjoying the game and improving is 110% about community. Get involved with a clan - once you're in you have skype/teamspeak channels to chat with people about strats/wins/bad beats and the game takes on a whole different feel.
Can't recommend Clans enough, makes me thankful I'm in TA :D
On July 28 2011 09:57 vnlegend wrote: The attrition is pretty huge. All of my RL friends quit too. This game is too difficult for them. It's pressure-filled instead of delivering an easy and fun experience.
jaeh but we not want another noob game likle C&C
for me and most other rts gamers this game is TO EASY and would be nice if its get harder
but i personally know alot people quit because no "share replays with friends" and when you watched replays every day in sc1 with friends you are not willing to miss it anywhere
On July 28 2011 09:57 vnlegend wrote: The attrition is pretty huge. All of my RL friends quit too. This game is too difficult for them. It's pressure-filled instead of delivering an easy and fun experience.
jaeh but we not want another noob game likle C&C
for me and most other rts gamers this game is TO EASY and would be nice if its get harder
but i personally know alot people quit because no "share replays with friends" and when you watched replays every day in sc1 with friends you are not willing to miss it anywhere
you should inform them of the magics of file transfer technology where you can send someone a replay and then they can watch it
I wonder how many people a day quit a game because they can't do something they actually can do.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's not the traditional sense.
In call of duty I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better weapons.
In World of Warcraft I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better spells/abilities, more quest access, and more zones to go to. Massive amounts of content based on raising level.
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
and apparently tradition comes from like 8 years or so?
Traditional sense= You get good, you beat people, you gloat!
Of course I'm talking early 90's video gaming with VR racers, Street fighter 2, Pacman, and various scolling shooters. I mean they didnt need fancy achievements to make them playable because back then gamers only cared about winning...not looking good!
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's not the traditional sense.
In call of duty I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better weapons.
In World of Warcraft I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better spells/abilities, more quest access, and more zones to go to. Massive amounts of content based on raising level.
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
If I ever played Call of Duty, I would play it first to just have fun romping around shooting people, and then later to get better at the game, because incidentally... I am horrible at FPS's. Though I admit getting perks is fun (I've gotten them in Uncharted and Assassin's Creed and plenty of other games), they're not the main attraction.
If I ever played World of Warcraft, it would probably be just to explore the world. I've played Guild Wars in the past in part because it's so pretty, in part grinding because I would dream of getting prettier armour.
So sometimes this sort of reward system is compelling, and other times I think they're just tacked on to give you another ostensible reason to buy the game.
However, this is not "traditional," it's a phenomena that's gotten far more popular over recent years, but originally... the only reward you got was a number that got higher and higher, until finally it was higher than your friend's scores, or at the very least, your previous scores - which is satisfying because it gives at least some sense of self-improvement.
I believe Starcraft 2 handles that sense of self-improvement well, not only through the leagues and through the point based divisions, but also in that it is easy (at least for me) to discern how far I've improved, and what I need to work on to improve further (then again, I spend an awful TON of time on this game, playing and watching and reading and talking about it... so these things are not so obvious for a more casual player)
Why do I mention this video? Because I feel that people no longer really care about the "skill" they receive but rather care more about "avatar strength." Maybe we, as the team liquid community, can see the value of being good at a game but these days people wouldn't mind if they had the same skill level but because they invest so much time into leveling or something they can mash the same buttons but because their "items" are better now they kill "harder to kill" things. It's really hard to try to win people like that over to a game like starcraft that now a days is filled with people trying to get better by watching VOD's and stuff like that. It'll be pretty difficult to win over casual gamers with this set. The best way to "save" starcraft from losing this casual gamer base would be something like DotA or something like that that doesn't require 200 APM and mastery of at least 5 build orders and unit compo's to be good at. (aka DotA required good understanding of hero match ups and stuff like that but you could still screw around and have fun)
that feels like the sole difference between SC2 and SC:BW. In SC:BW i did crazy builds like MASS GOLIATH and it was fun rolling people with some random build like that because not everyone watched VOD's and kept up with build orders and stuff so stupid builds like that were viable. SC:BW also had some of the best UMS games ever. :D
Basically, there are so many competitive people on SC2. The reason why I feel like this is is because of how b.net 2.0 looks like. The multiplayer button instantly takes you to a page where you are judged and placed based on how you perform. If you are casual then you end up in the "lower leagues" and just the fact that people call it the "lower leagues" makes it sound degrading and stuff. Basically it feels like there's too many people playing seriously and the people that just want to play to like, go mass infestor/ravens or just go ghosts and snipe all the marines are just demolished by proper build orders and then are placed in the "lower leagues"
well... that's what I think. Please don't think that i'm grouping everyone into one big group on b.net saying everyone that's a casual gamer doesn't care about getting better at a game. I just mean like, the TRUE TRUE TRUE casual gamer that doesn't care about getting better at a game and their mindset. I mean that's why I dropped myself all the way to bronze to mess around. I get to go things like mass reaper/mass helions. It sucks though that people will flame you for 30 minutes if you win and they say, "does it make you feel good when you beat noobs?" and I'm just like, "i want to ENJOY the game, is it so bad that i decided to go mass raven for fun?" It's just so competitive these days...
EDIT: It just feels really hard for me to try and see from the "casual bad player's" point of view because I was always relatively decent at games. Back in broodwar I played a bit competitively (local tournaments and stuff like that) and in DotA I usually was like a free agent/training person for clans but never played seriously. I get "fun" out of getting better and beating people I couldn't beat before. So yeah :\
every gripe about the single player battlenet experience, is the opposite when playing team games. massing ghost is viable or at least fun until at least platinum as long as you're not against more than 2 toss. if you want to rush bc's or protoss air, it's always viable. you can go straight mutas with lair before queen on so many maps. having said that, the same is true of a standard tier rush. 3racks, 4gate, roaches can all crush just as easily if you want to play straight up.
i don't care how bad your friends are, or what tactics they wish they could use; but i assure in 4v4 and 3v3 anything goes. maybe not in diamond, masters, high platinum, but everything below has been noting but fun for me.
the other beauty of team games is you can always blame the loss on your team fucking up. less pressure on you when clicking that find match button.
i wish the OP had the same data for 2's, 3's, and 4's.
In call of duty I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better weapons.
In call of duty, I play poorly and didn't word, I still level, and I still get better weapons (maybe slowly than better player, but i'll end having them anyway) It's only a matter of time
In World of Warcraft I work hard. I work hard so I level. I level so I get better spells/abilities, more quest access, and more zones to go to. Massive amounts of content based on raising level.
In wow, I play poorly and didn't work I still level, get better spells/abilities, quest etc It's only a matter of time
In StarCraft 2 I work hard. I work hard so I get promoted. My league symbol is a little more shiny. Other than that, its business as usual.
In starcraft 2, I play poorly and didn't work, i drop (or stay) in Bronze
I agree with most of the posts in this thread, and maybe I'm wrong since I'm only in gold/plat, and haven't been a part of the community for long, but I still would like to express myself!
I played WoW since the beta until 3-4 months ago when I started with Sc2. The thing that kept me playing WoW was the social part, and WoW is more of a chatwindow with improved grafics than a game. I reached 2500-2600 in 3v3 before I quit, and WoW arena was about synergy between you and your teammates, and I miss this "teamplay"-part in sc2. I quit WoW because blizzard balanced things mainly around PvE, and as I didn't PvE a lot it felt pointless continuing trying to fight the imbalananceness with my teammates.
Starcraft 2 has been insanely fun for me those first months, and when I don't play laddergames I watch userstreams here on TL, follow the major tournaments, and even watch on VOD's from older tournaments from the days when I didn't play Sc2, and I'm trying to be a part of the community doing this. Sure it's fun watching streams, VOD's and tournys, but I still feel alone when I play 1v1 in the ladder, and browsing forums here on TL is nothing like the social ingame-experience in WoW and other MMO's.
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy Sc2 a lot, but it could be so much more when it comes to the social part in-game.
Quiz - what is the cause of the large increase in rate of people joining ladder after 150 days in EU, NA and RU? Was it chat channels? You can see the curves are almost flat at 145 days then the go up again quite sharply until the end of Season 1.
40 % attrition is not that bad after 1 year but what is the real inactivity, i.e. people that play more than 5-20 ladder games a season. I fear it's much higher. Season 3 will be much lower I predict. But still that is not bad. Other games keep much less population of players in multiplayer I think.
The reason kr/tw has low s1->s2 ratio is due to the free public test period.
Basically anyone can make free BNet account and apply the public test and it cost u nothing. TW server has one month free public test period and KR has longer. Personally I did enroll in both and enjoy the free play for months.
After the free public test, lot of the account are then dead. But they are still in the data.
EU/NA dont have the free public test. You need to have the guest pass which is normally contained in a sold copy. So it 'cost' to test.
i.e. S1 player data is not accurate in kr/tw
BTW, cn server only sold month pass. There is no life-time version available for cn server. So many ppl just create new account each month for fun/ or for hack Also cn server has one free week public test. So you may find cn server data hard to understand later.
I'd like to point out that Korea nearly halved it's 1v1 population from season 1 to 2. The trend everywhere you look seems to be that Koreans are becoming more disinterested in the GSL, BW, and SCII in general.
well, its a hard game tbh... you have to work hard to get really really good, which is something you can´t expect from the average player who comes home after 8 hours of work/school. + many players started in s1 due to the lack of content in wow.
kinda sad though ;-/ well, only the best can survive! <3
unable to make custom games by yourself no shared rep watching (that was available in bw wtf) no clans no unrated matchmaker hard to get good at the game and theres no obvious reward at all %90 people who are laddering are usually a bunch of cheesers to get useless portraits
There is nothing sad or bad about those numbers. Pretty much expected. The activity of the community and stream numbers are much more important. Most people buy starcraft for the single player, which is surprising to me. At the midnight launch I talked to quite a few people and overheard a lot of conversations. Nobody gave a fuck about multiplayer. I was kinda blown away.
Yeah all of my friends quit after the campaign and a few tries at coop/team ladder. They lack the eye of the tiger T_T 1v1 is not as big a part of Starcraft as teamliquid would have you think.
On July 28 2011 11:47 snotboogie wrote: I do believe there's been major dropoff in players. I'm in Diamond now, and was in Diamond a year ago, but I know for sure I'm a far better player than I was then.
so is everyone else...
thing is majority of those 30 % who quit SC2 were casual players who were mostly in bronze/silver league. If there's -let's say- 60 % less silver and bronze players, the whole league system has to even out somehow. It will even out by demoting players "on edge" to lower leagues. Imagine there were 100 players playing and you'd lose only to 10 of them, that means you'd be better than 90 % of players and probably placed in diamond . Now imagine 50 players who are worse than you stop playing. Now you're only better than 80 % of players and will be placed in platinum.
Or am I wrong?
edit: hm, I didn't notice that at first, but 50 % drop for Korea is kinda huge.. also are there numbers for China season 2?
Looking closer at that. The slopes of the curves at steady state are more or less equal in S1 and S2 across the board so that means new players are coming in at the same rate.
S1 was twice as long so if the SC2 curve was allowed to keep rising it would reach 70- 90% the total of S1 in the same time.
We need to know the 'off rate' - the rate at which people drop the game - to know if SC2 is declining. I think it should be possible to calculate that from these curves and maybe 1-2 other pieces of data but I'm not a stato.
Or we could wait for season 3 and see how that goes. What we can tell for sure is that there are 10 - 20 % less players than season 1 in season 2.
Losing only 30-35% of the playerbase is fairly great. Season 1 data contains alot more people that buy SC2 mainly for the singleplayer, but also test the multiplayer for a few games to decide they don't like it. And it contains more of those players that buy the game because it is hyped.
The data would be alot more interesting if it contained only players with at least a hundret games. Even the data that we get between S2 and S3 will be more reliable.
On July 29 2011 01:30 MattBarry wrote: I got all my friends into eSports and SC2 and we all play alot. You guys just need to try harder
I asked a buddy of mine to relog into his account yesterday (he was bronze) after like 3 months of achievement hunting and ditching the game at release.
We played a bunch of micro tournament, 2v6insane a.i., kulas extreme, 2v2 ladder and some 1v1 with me offracing and not making warpgates the whole game.
If you respect the fact that some players have a hard time finding the rhythm for starcraft, and not push them to do 1v1 ladder into diamond, they actually respond pretty well to multiplayer; he's going to try to get better at starcraft now.
Stuff like this is ruining E-Sports. Stop ruining E-Sports by showing how many less people are playing 1v1 ladder
Seriously though that's kind of an alarming statistic that so many people are dropping off the 1v1 ladder My self personally I don't think I'm going to be playing much in season 3 on the 1v1 ladder due to the TERRIBLE map pool. Not a fan of ANY of the new added maps.
On July 28 2011 10:23 Wihl wrote: The problem for me is that I feel all alone when I play. It feels a bit like playing a really good AI.
I've found mixing a few hours of play in with an hour or two of stream watching keeps me feeling more a part of the community, rather than all alone in a game.
edit: Most of my friends have stopped playing also. Most of them only played for a couple of months, then went back to WoW, LoL, and HoN.
yeah this is the problem, was same in BW and wc3. very few people are competitive enough to enjoy mass grinding 1v1 so you get a lot less players over time. people get bored after a few months too with most games
On July 29 2011 01:50 DrBoo wrote: Stuff like this is ruining E-Sports. Stop ruining E-Sports by showing how many less people are playing 1v1 ladder
Seriously though that's kind of an alarming statistic that so many people are dropping off the 1v1 ladder My self personally I don't think I'm going to be playing much in season 3 on the 1v1 ladder due to the TERRIBLE map pool. Not a fan of ANY of the new added maps.
I think it's quite good, not at all alarming. Most people that play games play it like 1 month and move on, but we got a lot of people staying, I like it And I personally think it's in the long run never gonna work out if you withhold data from the people
SC2 is a really hard game to get good at, you need to study the game watch replays of pros and just ladder for hours. Other games like first person shooters u just need to play maybe like a week-two then you can play the game on a competitive level. Plus Battlenet feels so lonely as others have said again.
I think whats happening is that the hardcore players from ladder have d stayed but the casual gamers that enjoy laddering here and then and custom games have been pushed aside because of no game control.
I remember in BW, we always had a game list with a name which allowed us to create games quickly and to play what we liked instead of just tyhe popular maps because nobody plays the one at the end of the popularity list right now.
It quickly becomes monotonous when you have to replay 1 map consistantly or you wait for hours before someone did you like and joined hoping that for once, there might be someone playing it.
On July 29 2011 01:50 DrBoo wrote: Stuff like this is ruining E-Sports. Stop ruining E-Sports by showing how many less people are playing 1v1 ladder
Seriously though that's kind of an alarming statistic that so many people are dropping off the 1v1 ladder My self personally I don't think I'm going to be playing much in season 3 on the 1v1 ladder due to the TERRIBLE map pool. Not a fan of ANY of the new added maps.
I think it's quite good, not at all alarming. Most people that play games play it like 1 month and move on, but we got a lot of people staying, I like it And I personally think it's in the long run never gonna work out if you withhold data from the people
Of course not I don't think holding back information is at all good in any shape or form or group.
I'm just slightly alarmed by it because if we have that big of a drop off of people playing starcraft 2 then what's going to happen 5 years down the road? Are we going to have a player base big enough to even have a pro scene anymore?
It's kind of silly to be excited about lots of players quitting. If we want Starcraft II to grow so much, why are we happy about people leaving the game in droves? Yeah 1v1 is difficult but it is rewarding when you improve. There are many other ways to ply sc2 besides 1v1 so hopefully just as many people are still playing if not more and more each day.
Can't say I'm surprised. I don't play a whole lot myself nowadays, because at the end of most SC2 laddering sessions I end up with a sort of "bleh" feeling, a mixture of annoyance and indifference. And it's not like I'm a casual who finds the game too hard, I've never had this with arguably harder games, like Quake 3 or BW. And I'm also way better at SC2 than I was in BW.
I dunno, I guess SC2 simply has too much of these random "you lose" moments, where you play very well for 20 minutes, and then a misclick or some other small mistake makes you lose instantly. It's just really demotivating. I guess I understand the people who just cheese every game, at least they don't have to deal with this.
Farming game after game is definitely not for everyone.
7 of my buddies played with me on the first day of retail, and about 3 others that pop out every once in a while. Man, during the first two weeks of retail, we used to play 4v4's (customs mostly, sometimes ladder) all the way to 1AM -- and we all have office jobs the next day! Nowadays, we get to play 4v4 ladder one or two nights in a week.
Out of my 10 RL friends that played SC2, only 3 others play "regularly". Only one still plays 1v1 ladder, and that's because his Masters friend from Canada told him "How are you still in silver??". My other buddy ladders a lot, but only plays random team games - he enjoys the chaotic mess of team games. Another buddy only plays when we invite him to go online. He hasn't played 1v1 since the first week of retail, I believe.
Well the downfall isn't as big as the figures seem to tell. I think a lot of players used their guest passes the first season, e.g. I used both of them. Most of those guest accounts were only used untill their time limit expired.
None of my friends play save at my prompting, its like you say you like it but then never play? In other words you enjoy not improving, staying in bronze? Ok, weeding out the casual players gogogo
I think there isn't enough incentive to get better when the skill ceiling for most other games (read "console") is soooo low (COD, etc) and every FPS is the exact same except with different guns, different story, and different visuals.
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
- Clan Support - Replay with friends - Unranked automatching - Automated clan wars - Bnet automated tournaments - TeamLeague all-kill format (this would be so awesome!) - Embeded streams
Bnet right now is so boring, there is no sense of community or teamwork at all.
I couldn't agree more! Feels like this is a lost art in rts games... a lot of the heavy lifting in this department is now done outside the game... I guess I’m old school but I like to launch the game and get dumped in some random chat and all my game setting are easy to find and launching and creating new game wasn't a Rubik cube of a conundrum. Block and Add was a cinch. Hell, I remember Westwood before big bad EA took over had all this figured out. I log on to battle net 2.0 and more often than not I feel like I’ve gone back in time. Aspects of the online game that I used to love are a distant memory. Without Alt+Tab I’d feel sensory deprived thank to blizzard.
ya almost all of my friends irl quit (i had about 6 who played at 1 point but only 1 plays regularly and 1 of them plays like once a week) its not a big lose tho because its almost all of the casual players who stopped playing. all in all it means less QQ from the community
I don't think the attrition is any higher than any other game. Most people buy a game, play it for a few months or less and are done. Hell, I do that with most games.
B.net could use some more social features, though, for sure. Clans and the ability to have clan wars/rankings and such right in B.net would be huge.
I also think we'll get some bumps after each expansion is released.
Eventually as the game ages you'll see those numbers taper off average out.
I'd like to see a graph comparing the popularity of SC2 as a spectator sport over time. I think that graph would show upward momentum. Which is great, really. SC2 can become a huge spectator eSport and not need a massive player base. How many people race cars? How many people watch NASCAR? We've all dabbled in say, basketball or soccer in school, but how many really play regularly? Yet they're still huge spectator sports.
Wow good work. Those statistics are really interesting. More than half of all starcraft II owners in Korea, play more team games than 1v1. Interesting.
Europe has the highest rate of 1v1. Not surprised there. I thought it would be korea tbh, but I new Europe would be a close second.
I wonder how many of the players in Season 1 can be attributed to guest passes? Obviously they're still around, but right when the game came out there were a LOT more out there and more people taking advantage of that to just check out the game. I think the results between Season 2 and 3 will be more telling for a lot of reasons (natural dropoff from launch to now and seeing if it stabilizes to start).
On July 29 2011 08:12 whaty0uwant wrote: Wow good work. Those statistics are really interesting. More than half of all starcraft II owners in Korea, play more team games than 1v1. Interesting.
Europe has the highest rate of 1v1. Not surprised there. I thought it would be korea tbh, but I new Europe would be a close second.
Nice work man _b
To clarify, that's teams per player, not games per gametype. You can only have 1 1v1 "team". You can have infinite 2v2 arranged, 3v3a, and 4v4a teams. Since I don't have temporal data, it's impossible for me to show an activity graph (which would be cool).
These numbers are actually impressive, especially considering the amount of players that play just for single player content or aren't too invested in the RTS genre as a whole (I'd say a solid 20-30% of that initial S1 number). So looking forward to HotS
These numbers are incredibly depressing. But i've got to agree with everyone else who says that bnet 2.0 is like playing single player vs. REALLY good AI.
It's just such a solo and singular experience, it's like you can't ever get into anything. A few of the chatrooms i frequent are near 100 all day every day. It's a random assortment of people and i never feel like any of it's a part of the community.
i've still got a few friends who play, but it's nowhere near who all played when the first game out (yea, some of them were casuals, but others, once they had a little bit of a period of inactivity, they just kind of fell off the starcraft earth).
It's REALLY hard to drag more people into the game, and i feel like you either already LOVE bw/sc2, or it's not your schtick.
And frankly, it's exhausting to have the exact same win ratio again and again, and realize you're getting better, but not be able to see anything tangible for it
At any rate, i hope they do something to make it a little more social...and not just adding twitter support or something, something to actually make the chatrooms feel like chatrooms, instead of a private conversation with you and 99 of your new closest friends...
Its weird how the koreans and taiwan probably play more 1v1 than everyone else, if you look at the teams per player collumn.
Also, I think one of the reasons the decrease in players happened was because of League of Legends or LoL. Several of my friends switched over to the game, and some of my friends quit out of frustration (and then started playing LoL). They were in bronze-gold area, whereas I was in diamond at the time (masters at the start of season 2 though). Its much more encouraging to play the game when you are in a higher league or you are winning more.
Just wondering, has anyone else lost some of their friends to LoL???
I love playing sc2 even if I lose a ton, but it does feel like Im just playing against an AI, there's not much communication between the glhf and the gg. Clans, or even just custom tournaments that count towards portraits or something of the sort that would promote community. The game is great I just wish blizz would work on improving community through bnet there would be a lot more playing.
On July 29 2011 01:41 eteran wrote: Losing only 30-35% of the playerbase is fairly great. Season 1 data contains alot more people that buy SC2 mainly for the singleplayer, but also test the multiplayer for a few games to decide they don't like it. And it contains more of those players that buy the game because it is hyped.
The data would be alot more interesting if it contained only players with at least a hundret games. Even the data that we get between S2 and S3 will be more reliable.
So, I threw together a query, and got some interesting data. Take it with a grain of salt though, as I don't know the patterns of activity across a season (I can assume that fewer games are played as the season goes on, but I don't know the rate it changes at). Since season 2 is slightly less than half the duration of season 1, I'm using the following numbers:
Season 1 data is >= 100 games Season 2 data is >= 55 games
The attrition isn't really surprising to me either. Although my friends still play the game sometimes, they only ever want to play team games and can't stomach playing 1v1's. They all placed into 1v1 during season 1 but didn't bother in season 2. I can't imagine them bothering in season 3 either.
China and LA graphs seem broken. Time = 2800 days? If you divide by 20 it seems to fit the other graphs. The problem is if you adjust the data in that way it still doesn't relate to the other realms since every other graph is scaled towards S1.
The LA and China graphs (along with every other) would become equally relevant if every realm was adjusted according to season 2 data average.
Curious as to how you got anomoly on day ~90 Russia S1 (the gap makes it appear as a drop).
Most graphs tend to echo that of NA, except Europe which seems to have the highest retention.
Thank you for collecting this data.
I am curious as to how you went about collecting this data.
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
- Clan Support - Replay with friends - Unranked automatching - Automated clan wars - Bnet automated tournaments - TeamLeague all-kill format (this would be so awesome!) - Embeded streams
Bnet right now is so boring, there is no sense of community or teamwork at all.
This right here sums it up.
Yet what does Blizzard allocate man hours to? Making maps with a 2 rax+1 addon bugged maps. Seriously, doesn't make any sense. Sponsors and 3rd parties have started to realize the revenue that can and is being generated through SC2. "Casuals" who don't ladder day in and day out every day every week are being essentially ignored after minor updates to customs.
On July 29 2011 12:58 stanik wrote: China and LA graphs seem broken. Time = 2800 days?
Heh, it's actually hours. That's what I have by default, I made it days for the other ones. I'll do the same on those. Also I found some old s1 data, so LA has some numbers to compare the seasons.
On July 29 2011 12:58 stanik wrote: Curious as to how you got anomoly on day ~90 Russia S1 (the gap makes it appear as a drop).
It's a trick on the eyes, it's actually no change in players. Some error on updating my data and it made a new stats point and saved anyway almost certainly. In China's, you can see a drop at some point though. Dunno why. There are definitely bans going on that I pick up and remove those players, so that may explain some of it.
On July 29 2011 12:58 stanik wrote: The LA and China graphs (along with every other) would become equally relevant if every realm was adjusted according to season 2 data average.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Changing the data table for players if I cut off at the total time in season 1 to equal that of season 2?
I have 5 friends who convinced me to buy and another 20 or so who got it it because they were saying how awesome it was, we all started playing 1v1, in 2 weeks 10 of them quit, 10 of them only play custom games, 1 just started playing 1v1 again, and the other 4 play teams or cusoms occasionally. Most of them play LoL. SC2 is a very time consuming, stressful game, and its way too difficult for most people.
my friends who play 1v1 occasionally are all in plat, one just got promoted to diamond when i got promoted to masters, and the different between the bottom of diamond and masters is absurd, he cant beat me no matter what he does.
I feel like the pressure is something that can definitely be overcome even by "casuals," I myself starting out as one at launch, placing in bronze and staying there for 100+ games. I lost a lot of ladder games at first but just kept going and eventually made it to masters.
A large issue for new players is the pure amount of effort that must be put into the game before even getting one's first legitimate win. There is no real tutorial on how to play multiplayer and despite the availability of resources such as liquipedia, many people are quite lost about what to do in 1v1.
That leads into another rather large problem: people like winning. A lot of my friends simply beat the campaign then quit after 5-6 ladder games. The campaign is designed to be winnable by the average gamer, something that attracts a large group of people. Conversely, people hate losing; just think about how many times have you been BMed on ladder.
In my opinion, it is not a player who desires to get better at starcraft that actually stays and grinds it out until the higher leagues, but rather someone who is willing to gracefully accept losses and move on - something that is sorely lacked in the stereotypical modern gamer screaming over his mic or blaming his partners for dragging him down.
I consider myself lucky since I have several realID friends around my skill level in 1v1 and quite a few that are active in ladder games despite being in lower leagues.
I only have one friend who actively plays anymore. He 4gated his way to diamond in season 1 and has stayed there since. He's better than me at playing protoss I can beat him with both of the other races even though I'm a league lower than him. I'm betting when he does placements he will be in platinum this season as he was playing bottom diamond and my level of platinum last I checked.
Everyone else has either quit altogether or just plays customs (Star Battle and other crap like that.). Once in a blue moon they will log in and get me to play team games with them but that's about it.
I am glad that people are being weeded out. This means only the devoted are staying, making the level of play improve (hopefully). More players who play for the late game and fewer one basers.
My buddy said his entire store (tiger direct, it's a large chain computer and electronic store) bought the game. Like 12 people+. One guy therewas better than everyone, so 11 of them just stopped playing. What's happening to people these days?! I have awesome rivalries with 2 of my friends in everything from tennis, to cod, to Starcraft, to billiards, to weightlifting. When I win in one these games, or perform better at something, it MOTIVATES them to get better. And vice versa. So many people just give up that it's disgusting.
Thanks for the graphs/info, it's super cool seeing how SC2 is developing :D
Also, I've found it a lot easier to get my friends into SC2, compared to BW. Before, I had to show them Cholera's Reach commentaries and even then, I'd only be able to get them play Fastest Maps (D, and 1 friend to play 1v1s with me. Now, there's so much English commentary out there, I have gotten so many of my friends into SC2. Granted they're still not that great, but it's a start, and they'll be good one day maybe .
On July 29 2011 14:33 CellTech wrote: My buddy said his entire store (tiger direct, it's a large chain computer and electronic store) bought the game. Like 12 people+. One guy therewas better than everyone, so 11 of them just stopped playing. What's happening to people these days?! I have awesome rivalries with 2 of my friends in everything from tennis, to cod, to Starcraft, to billiards, to weightlifting. When I win in one these games, or perform better at something, it MOTIVATES them to get better. And vice versa. So many people just give up that it's disgusting.
Rivalry usually implies that both parties have a decent chance at victory
The chances of someone getting 2-3 lucky kills in CoD are pretty high compared to the chances of a bronze taking a game off a master. When people see something as hopeless, most will just give up
I personally love the 1v1 ladder and the sense I am improving by playing better people. But only one of my 4 or 5 RL friends has continued to play past the first couple of months. I love the fact I can always find something to improve, but I could see it being intimidating too.
Ladder anxiety is a big issues, a lot of my freinds dont play as much as they used to, BUT that being said, they still watch all the big events and probably more so now than when the game came out. It certainly seems like the devoted group of players that love it are staying and the people who played the game because it was new, will come and go....
There are other reasons why people might leave. I myself just found I didn't enjoy the game anymore. I was playing it because I wanted to get better and not because it was fun and then suddenly realized I'm not enjoying myself anymore. I realized I was committing probably 2 hours a day to something I didn't enjoy and came to the conclusion it wasn't worth it any more.
Why I stopped finding it fun is a good question that I'm not even sure of the answer too. Was it the game? the environment (Bnet) I don't know.
On July 29 2011 16:03 Greg_J wrote: There are other reasons why people might leave. I myself just found I didn't enjoy the game anymore. I was playing it because I wanted to get better and not because it was fun and then suddenly realized I'm not enjoying myself anymore. I realized I was committing probably 2 hours a day to something I didn't enjoy and came to the conclusion it wasn't worth it any more.
Why I stopped finding it fun is a good question that I'm not even sure of the answer too. Was it the game? the environment (Bnet) I don't know.
That could have been my post. I only play ffa once in a while. Keep watching streams though.
I feel that this is an incredibly high retention rate considering that S1 is when the game came out. Considering that, I wouldn't be surprised if this is an actual growth if corrected for first week drop outs.
If 11 out of your 12 friends stopped playing rather quickly, then this is actually growing.
Does show that the game is going much stronger in the US and EU than in Korea though.
Battle net 2.0 is a lonely place though. That part somehow worked better in WC3.
I wish b.net's custom game selection was like broodwars, the newest created make the top of the list. I feel like will smith in I am legend when I want to play a genuinely fun custom game that happens to be on page 7.
It's not a problem for Blizzard since they'll probably buy the extensions for the campaign at least. I guess a lot of people just leave the game because of the crappy bnet 2.0. I hope they update bnet with the releases of heart of swarm/diablo3.
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
[...] - Unranked automatching [...]
Unranked automatching would lead to a nearly dead ladder. Most people would prepare in unranked matches and only ladder when they feel they are ready. Ladder gets harder, leading to an even greater use for unranked automatches.
I think we need a shift in the community mindset. "Hey you are Bronze top 25 in your division? That's great, man! Can we watch a replay together where you won?"
Shared replay watching is essential imo. SC2 lives through the community experience.
Most people just give up. Most of my friends are gold - diamond and how hard they even try, they just can't get higher. Instead of asking for advice, they just quit.
I am sure it has been said multiple times, but it is the lack of a social atmosphere that keeps casual gamers away. It is almost impossible to meet people outside of the forums other than simply talking to the people you play against, and in that case most people just want to be quiet and play. But the biggest piece is no clan implimentation. One of the BIGGEST reason people stay with WoW for such a long time is a dedicated group of friends who all play together and accomplish things together. A guild chat would be amazing for the game IMO.
Keep in mind however, I dont give a crap about any if this, I just want to play my game and be completely anti social while I am doing it. However I think this is the opposite of what most people are looking for.
On July 29 2011 14:33 CellTech wrote: My buddy said his entire store (tiger direct, it's a large chain computer and electronic store) bought the game. Like 12 people+. One guy therewas better than everyone, so 11 of them just stopped playing. What's happening to people these days?! I have awesome rivalries with 2 of my friends in everything from tennis, to cod, to Starcraft, to billiards, to weightlifting. When I win in one these games, or perform better at something, it MOTIVATES them to get better. And vice versa. So many people just give up that it's disgusting.
I also have some rivalries in SC2. So far I always lost horribly. But at least they are also my practice partners, I can ask them to play a certain strategy so I can practice against it and get some timings right. Then I feel much more confident on ladder even though I lost my custom practice games.
And while so far I lost any Best-of-X, sometimes I can get a map off them. GREAT feeling.
But most seem to think "You just want to crush me to feel better."
The problem is that BW/SC2 1v1 is such a mental battle. It's draining. Many people want to improve, but then they realise how much time they need to spend on the game to get to the level they want to be at, and end up giving up. If 2v2 or 4v4 was the norm rather than 1v1, then BW/SC2 would be far more appealing to people who aren't just completely addicted to BW/SC2.
This is especially true for competitive amateur players who have real life commitments and may need to spend time away from the game for an extended period. It is completely daunting to have to come and try to get back to your old level after a few weeks of inactivity, not to mention that everyone you know has improved and the metagame has already shifted.
If someone ever makes a 4v4 RTS that is actually balanced and not reliant on rushes, then I can see it being a huge success to the more casual crowd.
On July 28 2011 10:06 IPA wrote: SC2 is not a game for the weak.
yeah, i can see a lot of people playing 10-100 games then never touching multi player ever again
Well to be honest, I think it comes down to personal preference.. Cause thats how I am with almost every other non-blizzard game. I've played CS for like afew weeks, but got bored of it. Other FPS's just suck so I play them for like 5 hours and then dont play it at all after that. WoW also; everyone says its so "addicting" but even when I went in trying to play, I just got bored as hell after 5 hours of running around, and didnt play it again.
So maybe people feel that way about SC, especially if they dont have previous RTS experience, its kinda a hard genre to get into, unlike FPS or MMOs.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's the thing, people don't like to work hard. People don't like to put in effort. They only like to see rewards. I wouldn't worry about the decline in players per season, weeding out the weak.
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's the thing, people don't like to work hard. People don't like to put in effort. They only like to see rewards. I wouldn't worry about the decline in players per season, weeding out the weak.
That's not entirely fair. You have to consider that for many people, a game is just that...a game. They don't see it as something they mean to work hard at or any of that. They do that at their jobs, work nights, weekends, etc to improve their skill at it. That translates to a better life for them, with higher pay, better house, etc. To those people, a game is something to have fun at and let loose. I wouldn't call them weak at all. Just directing their "work hard" budget to something else
On July 29 2011 20:46 Denzil wrote: That's the thing, people don't like to work hard. People don't like to put in effort. They only like to see rewards. I wouldn't worry about the decline in players per season, weeding out the weak.
That's not entirely fair. You have to consider that for many people, a game is just that...a game. They don't see it as something they mean to work hard at or any of that. They do that at their jobs, work nights, weekends, etc to improve their skill at it. That translates to a better life for them, with higher pay, better house, etc. To those people, a game is something to have fun at and let loose. I wouldn't call them weak at all. Just directing their "work hard" budget to something else
On July 28 2011 10:06 PassiveAce wrote: Im not to surprised. very few of my friends really enjoy 1v1. Starcraft is in stark contrast to most games in that it does not provide a very rewarding experience in the traditional sense (unlocks, etc)
I'd say the opposite. Starcraft IS rewarding in the traditional sense: you work to get harder, and the reward for your work is an improved skill level. Unlocks and other such rewards for grinding is I think a more recent phenomena in videogames, predominant over the last few years sure, but not how games traditionally used to be, and not how they all should be.
Getting points and unlocking minifigs in Lego Star Wars, for example, is great fun, but it will never come anywhere close to being as fun as I find Starcraft 2.
(When I first played this game, I couldn't even build an army to kill things. I'd sit back on one base with a planetary fortress and turrets and three siege tanks with like 10 APM. Now I'm happily harassing and killing things at 5x the APM in gold league, even though I probably spend slightly more time watching the game like a sport than I do actually playing it)
That's the thing, people don't like to work hard. People don't like to put in effort. They only like to see rewards. I wouldn't worry about the decline in players per season, weeding out the weak.
That's not entirely fair. You have to consider that for many people, a game is just that...a game. They don't see it as something they mean to work hard at or any of that. They do that at their jobs, work nights, weekends, etc to improve their skill at it. That translates to a better life for them, with higher pay, better house, etc. To those people, a game is something to have fun at and let loose. I wouldn't call them weak at all. Just directing their "work hard" budget to something else
yea QFT here. Dont get me wrong, I love the intensity of SC2, I just wish it was a little more laid back, sort of like a wc3-type pace. Where it definitely helps to be fast, but you don't have to be at 200+ apm for 15 minutes straight to be successful.
The way the matchmaking works, if you don't practice and stay up to date with replays and certain builds you won't have >50% win ratio. That makes ladder not as fun for the casual gamer who isn't part-time pro and just wants to ladder every now and then. It makes laddering not fun.
This is the same format as the first table, but with season 1 data at the same duration as season 2. (just under 4 months on both s1 and 2)
(1v1 is people that have played 1v1 games) (tpp is teams per player)
SEASON 1 SEASON 2 S1 -> S2 locale players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp players 1v1 tpp us 823799 610621 2.83 628046 447889 2.70 (76.2%) (73.3%) (95.5%) eu 621059 482833 2.79 541202 405818 2.77 (87.1%) (84.0%) (99.4%) kr 377317 235572 1.91 221819 138922 1.92 (58.8%) (59.0%) (100.6%) sea 102833 79127 3.00 70238 50939 2.74 (68.3%) (64.4%) (91.2%) tw 122434 89330 2.30 48401 37365 2.47 (39.5%) (41.8%) (107.2%) ru 73808 60129 2.78 46813 36281 2.71 (63.4%) (60.3%) (97.7%) cn China has no season 1 data la Due to human error, I fucked the Latin America season 1 data up
because the match making system keeps your winrate stable, you never really feel like you have improved. I know of people who dropped games until they where demoted. They just wanted to enjoy their skill by owning weaker players.
Seriously Bnet should be promoting a community in it:
- Clan Support - Replay with friends - Unranked automatching - Automated clan wars - Bnet automated tournaments - TeamLeague all-kill format (this would be so awesome!) - Embeded streams
Bnet right now is so boring, there is no sense of community or teamwork at all.
this.
Yeah all my friends quit too, im really sad, this is the only way İ could start rising some passion and interest. But people saying thıs game should be easier or w/e ARE WRONG.
the whole point of games like starcraft is based around the old arcade machines i.e. in arcades the games were hard to beat so that u would continue to pay money in order to keep playing so that eventually you could win games have changed froms this approach to a more its not about winning or losing its about grinding games in order to get hats, perks, ranks, skins and so forth
At the end of the day i play BW and SC2 not because i win every game but because it is challenging so that when i win im like fuck yeah i feel like i achieved something.
Yea, my friends quit too. Given the guild system they have in WoW (you don't have to change your name or anything like that, you just join a guild and it displays that you're in it) I'm surprised they don't do something about SC2. Grinding it out on the ladder is probably a real pisser for the average person, especially absent of some kind of community experience.
But we don't pay per month, so I guess there isn't really an incentive to make sure that people who have already paid for the game keep playing, unfortunately. It seems like the harsh reality is that its more important for WoW to have cool features like guilds because it keeps people logging on. Its a shame though
I dont think the requirement of 'work' is really a good way of telling whether a game will be successful casually or not. Games like wow take just as much time commitment and research as a game like starcraft, but other games don't punish you for failing or try and cover it up, while on the other hand give you big shiny letters, big popups, and happy music when you succeed. It's almost like social engineering.
Failing in WoW just means you have to spend a few seconds running back to your body. Failing in LoL just means you wait a few seconds to respawn.
Failing in starcraft, the game makes it pretty obvious that you just got outskilled/outplayed/outstrategized and on top of that you lose your hard earned ladder points. When you win, nothing happens. You go to the score screen and go 'thats it'. Overall, it just creates a high tension/stressful environment that casual gamers dont enjoy.
Its the same reason arenas in wow pretty much died out, and the same reason ranked games in LoL are only played by a minority of the playerbase.
Isn't your data wrong? I 100% certain that sc2ranks.com registered over 1,1 millions players in US and over 900000 players on EU, this was just end of season 2.
Great work! These numbers are right on with what I expected.
Also, note that the game count for all game modes is actually growing. This means a lot of the casuals who realized they can't keep up with the competitiveness of SC2 are still playing the Custom Games. This is still great for esports!
On July 31 2011 10:22 Trumpstyle wrote: Isn't your data wrong? I 100% certain that sc2ranks.com registered over 1,1 millions players in US and over 900000 players on EU, this was just end of season 2.
Maybe its active ladder players?
IMO some people just don't find challenges fun - they just want to own noobs and 1v1 ladder with 50/50 ratio doesn't allow that.
On July 31 2011 10:22 Trumpstyle wrote: Isn't your data wrong? I 100% certain that sc2ranks.com registered over 1,1 millions players in US and over 900000 players on EU, this was just end of season 2.
I'm confident in my numbers. Their data is a total of everybody they've collected over the life of the game. You'll notice that, now at the start of season 3, it says 1.1 million players. 1.1 million NA people have not played a season 3 ladder games yet. About 220,000 have!
When merging my three season's data together, I get 1,134,481 players in Americas and 134,711 in SEA. And I haven't updated in over a day so I'm a little behind.
It's indeed the social aspect.. I feel like such an autist if I start laddering for 10 games in a row.. WoW you were never really alone((make friends, start guilds), as goes for LoL(Team game, make friends, get arranged teams)) and every game with Dedicated servers(Where you can join same servers = learning people = sort of home)
SC2 only has Chat Channels. Team games are fun, but if you only play those you get sick and tired of the nooby allies (you're not as much in control in team games as you can be with other games, if you are really good)
For me, personally, the reason I don't play so much anymore is quite simple really, standard builds punish creativity. Someone goes on youtube and learns how to do a 3 rax and suddenly is a beast in Terran. I dunno, I like to mess around, have fun, but its hard to do anything when the bulk of your games are 10 pools, 2 gates , 4 gates, and 3 rax. Most games don't go past 10 mins.
I also play Protoss, I'm sure thats not helping either.
Bnet 2.0 is like a Toyota Prius - its eco, its clean, its efficient.. but lacks any semblance of personality and soul.
The only thing SC2 has going for me is tournaments. I still get a kick watching MLG and NASL, but other then that I rarely launch the game anymore and actually play games.
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