I would like to thank u/elefanc for helping gather PC data and his friends Zalkai (Nov 12-15) and Blaymax (Sep 10-13) in gathering Xbox data. Elefanc is involved in France's gaming community and this couldn't have been done without him and his friends' help.
Y5S3: Player Counts taken during this season. This post contains the following:
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Y5S3 Roll-Up of Player Counts over specific timeframes
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Details of each time period taken, including screenshots
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My own personal observances
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General Information on Player metrics
Y5S3 Active Population Counts: Four separate periods during Challenge Events
minimum totals, at least this many played at least one match during these timeframes
Y5S3 Total Roll-Up Information by Platform: Data Rollup Page link
| Platform | Sep 10-13 | Oct 1-4 | Oct 15-18 | Nov 12-15 | 1st to last week Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4/5 | 180,672 | 157437 | 152554 | 146,597 | -19% |
| XBox | 186,242 | N/A | N/A | 140,722 | -24% |
| PC | 93, 619 | 80,985 | N/A | 82,695 | -12% |
| Totals: | 460,533 | X | X | 370,014 | -20% |
| Notes: | Y5S3 Start | XP Fest | Mid-Season | Last week Y5S3 | No Halloween Event |
- Note: All rankings are active players, as one match needs to be completed during this timeframe to qualify for a ranking. Inactive Accounts do not receive rankings. The Oct. 21st to Nov. 4th Mid-Season Event is not part of these data sets (far more would have played during that time).
Y5S3: 12-15NOV21 Player Counts with Faction Breakdowns (Platform links provide screenshots of results):
| Platform | Vikings | Knights | Samurai | Platform Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSN | 56,720 (38.8%) | 47,852 (32.6%) | 41,925 (28.6%) | 146,597 (39.6%) |
| XBOX | 50,018 (35.5%) | 51,101 (36.3%) | 39,603 (28.1%) | 140,731 (38%) |
| PC | 32,510 (39.3%) | 26,795 (32.4%) | 23,390 (28.3%) | 82,695 (22.3%) |
| Totals | 139,248 (37.6%) | 125,748 (33.9%) | 104,918 (28.4%) | 370,014 |
- Notes: Last weekend of the season with a 2000 steel reward for this Challenge Event. The three week Dead By Daylight Crossover Halloween Event ended the week before, as well as major sales on all platforms for most of October.
Y5S3: 15-18OCT21 Player Counts with Faction Breakdowns (Platform links provide screenshots of results):
| Platform | Vikings | Knights | Samurai | Platform Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSN | 58,043 (38%) | 50,903 (33.4%) | 43,608 (28.6%) | 152,554 |
| XBOX | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| PC | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
- Notes: Start of the fifth week of the Season, halfway through Y5S3. PC and XBox data not available.
Y5S3: 1-4OCT21 Player Counts with Faction Breakdowns (Platform links provide screenshots of results):
| Platform | Vikings | Knights | Samurai | Platform Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSN | 58,678 (37.3%) | 54,538 (34.6%) | 44,221 (28.1%) | 157,437 |
| PC | 31,576 (39%) | 28,050 (34.6%) | 21,359 (26.4%) | 80,985 |
| XBOX | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Faction Percentages | 37.9% | 34.6% | 27.5% |
- Notes: XP Fest during this time.
Y5S3: 10-13SEP21 Player Counts with Faction Breakdowns (Link to Original Post):
| Platform | Vikings | Knights | Samurai | Platform Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XBOX | 62,442 (33.5%) | 71,545 (38.4%) | 52,255 (28.1%) | 186,242 (40.4%) |
| PSN | 64,945 (35.9%) | 64,4494 (35.7%) | 51,233 (28.4%) | 180,672 (39.2%) |
| PC | 37,084 (39.6%) | 32,886 (35.1%) | 23,649 (25.3%) | 93,619 (20.3%) |
| Totals | 164,471 (35.7%) | 168,925 (36.7%) | 127,137 (27.6%) | 460,553 |
- Notes: First weekend of the season. See link to Original Post for more details.
Personal Observances:
Overall Numbers: These numbers aren't great, not even good. Not when compared to numbers taken from one and two years ago. However, they're not bad either. Unfortunately for 3/5ths of the Regions (SA, OCE, East Asia), the majority of these numbers are in the NA and EU Regions. What is bad is that the last population count taken was coming on the heels of the Dead By Daylight Cross-Over Event and massive sales on all platforms. Retainability of new players, as well as being able to entice former players into returning and staying, remains a big problem for this IP. Getting new players has never been a problem for this game, despite what some may think, it's having them stay that's the bigger issue.
Main Takeaways: After four separate readings, a consistent pattern is shown. While these numbers aren't the industry standard of MAU, they do give a general snapshot of how the game is, playerbase-wise. These are just the minimum amounts, more may have played during these timeframes, but not by much to make any type of difference (these readings were done to ensure the lowest possible rankings). While many might not play on the weekends, the majority of players do. There's not a large amount of players out there from one platform or one Faction that would drastically alter the percentages much. These generalizations can be taken from these data sets...
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Platforms: Playstation and Xbox are about even in regards to active players. Consoles combined have almost 80% of players and PC has around 20%. That hasn't changed much over the years. Xbox being equal to Playstation has, but that's more on For Honor losing Playstation players rather than Xbox gaining more players.
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Factions: Similarly like the platforms, Vikings and Knights have the majority of players with the Samurai having less than 30% of active players. That too hasn't changed much over the past few years. However, the Vikings used to have a far larger active population (like PS4 to Xbox) and the Knights' population percentages have increased these past few seasons. Again though, I think losing players overall has a bigger impact than anything else (actual population isn't increasing).
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Populations: Regardless of what anyone says, including me when comparing this game's population to years past, this game is almost nearing it's 6th year from release in a couple months. Retaining and increasing playerbase after 5 years is a burden on most any IP, especially one in a niche genre. As evident with these numbers, there's still hundreds of thousands that still play this game monthly. Far more than a lot like to think. Of course, the majority of those are in only two regions, regardless of platform.
Added Info concerning Player Metrics (feel free to skip, only for those interested)
Notice on Player Metrics: These are valid Total Counts of active players over the specified timeframe. Each ranking is a valid player and ranking totals can give a snapshot of where the game is at, if optimized to get the lowest ranking possible of Challenges that encompass all modes. Two to three week Event Challenges are the best to get better full population data, but these weekend snapshots' percentages are usually very indicative of what the overall monthly data will be (ie 20% of the population is on PC, Knights/Vikings are about even, PSN/Xbox are about even, the monthly Active Playerbase is in the hundreds of thousands etc.). They don't deviate much at all. For monthly totals, the numbers increase could be anywhere between 25-75%, depending on how/if Special Events attract new/old players (based on previous ones I've done, it can vary). However, what is conclusive is that hundreds of thousands still play this game monthly, on all platforms.
Total Counts vs Concurrent Counts: Total counts are far different than Concurrent Counts. Do not use Steam's Concurrent Counts to gauge overall player population. Steam's Concurrent Counts don't differentiate between unique accounts from hour to hour, so players on at 10am will be different than those at 9pm, even though the Concurrent Count on Steam never changed. Steam Charts only tracks Steam players online at any one specific time, they do not track EGS, Ubisoft Direct players (possibly larger than Steam), or the more populated Console platforms. Steam Charts is better to use as a gauge for how popular a game is on Steam and not for how populated a game is overall.
Other sources of player metrics: Granted, there isn't much else to use for game metrics because Publishers want to keep that data close to the chest and not publically displayed. There's certain websites that try to produce Player Counts, but those are heavily flawed because most of them just extrapolate data from Steam Charts. They aren't plugged into For Honor's API, they're playing a guessing game and don't even factor in the far larger populations on console. Heck, one Player Counter site uses a Random Number Generator for player populations. Be wary of those types of sites. The only one that was worth looking at for PS4 populations (Gamstats) is now defunct.
Submitted by ConnorMacLeod- | #Specialdealer Special Offer Online Shopping Store 2016
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