Retention Dropping

[Joe_Blow 11]

What is being done to retain players?

Aug 28th

1,151,018 Unique Players

122,188 Players in last 24 hours (as of this post)

10.6% of the people who have signed up to play

Aug 16th

1,083,127 Unique Players

154,123 Players in last 24 hours

14% of the people who have signed up to play

Aug 10th

1,033,988 Unique Players

170,378 Players in last 24 hours

16% of the people who have signed up to play

Surely this is not all due to Hackers and the announcement of a standalone.

Are people just getting bored with running around avoiding Zombies and Bandits, looking for Loot and Vehicles?

Is there something more that can be added to the mod to diversify the game play?

Edited August 28, 2012 by Joe_Blow

[Xrinaphobia 10]

I don't get why people think that's the only thing you can do.

Have some creativity and imagination!

Instead of just looking for loot and vehicles...

Why not get a squad and give free rides to new spawns?

Why not start up a team of people who can bodyguard someone?

Why not use a bit of creativity for the game!

[ZomboWTF 527]

i think its the people who's ultimate goal is to get an AS50 and L85 that aren't playing so much anymore, now that you can find 20 of each in most tents because of duping

ATM im playing on lingor, way more fun and hell as hard because of the sheer mass of zeds

[ZlobaRUS54 441]

It's just sad. The CHURN is increasing and ARPU is going down the drain...

Edited August 16, 2012 by ZlobaRUS54

[Joe_Blow 11]

I don't get why people think that's the only thing you can do.

Have some creativity and imagination!

Instead of just looking for loot and vehicles...

Why not get a squad and give free rides to new spawns?

Why not start up a team of people who can bodyguard someone?

Why not use a bit of creativity for the game!

I'm not sure this answers the question about retention. The only creativity I have sen is from the hackers, but that is driving people away not makeing them stick around.

And giving free rides to people is not fun if all the thanks you get is a bullett to the brain once they get a hold of a weapon.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Joe_Blow

[NightRipper 284]

Is there something more that can be added to the mod to diversify the game play?

Answer:

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

I'm just going to copy-paste the response I last made to a "baww DayZ is dying!!" thread.

Who cares?

Call that an immature response if you want, but I'm serious. Who cares? There's some kind of obsession with player numbers, I don't know if it started with World of Warcraft or what, but do you really think everyone Who bought that game played it yesterday? I didn't play it yesterday, does that mean I don't like it?

As long as there is a single server up I'll be a fan, it just does not matter to me how popular something is. Fun first.

We don't know how low player numbers would have to be to make Rocket give up and call the whole thing off, only he knows, but one thing we do know is that the success of this mod has been higher than he could have possibly imagined. In the recent Machinima interview he said it's almost grown too fast for its own good.

Just some food for thought. This is a bad thread, and you should feel bad.

We need an opposite of giving beans. Have an empty tin can to collect your doom and gloom tears. :emptycan:

Edited August 16, 2012 by Ulfhedjinn

[Joe_Blow 11]

I'm just going to copy-paste the response I last made to a "baww DayZ is dying!!" thread.

Children were meant to be seen and not heard.

Your mother is calling you; it’s time for you bath.

You better be on your way.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

Children were meant to be seen and not heard.

Your mother is calling you; it’s time for you bath.

You better be on your way.

Cool counter-argument bro. Though, it did make me smirk, to be called a child by someone who seems to think player numbers are a priority for an alpha version of a mod.

[McLovinCR 29]

Answer:

Who is a good boy? who is a good boy? who is?

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

It's just sad. The CHURN is increasing and ARPU is going down the drain...

Uhh, ARPU is static.

As for OP, it's not retention that's falling it's new player acquisition. During the steam sale we were gaining 180,000 players per week. Now we're only getting ~50,000.

So it's actually retaining at probably the same rate as it was before, it's just not getting as many incoming so the PP24hr number is falling.

Maybe that's semantics, but I think it's an important distinction.

And I do not think it is tied directly to the stand-alone announcement - it was falling before that.

The players we are losing I think are mainly veterans who have exhausted what the mod is currently capable of providing from a gameplay standpoint and are waiting patiently for the stand-alone.

Personally I've put ~750 hours into the mod. I've done what there is to do and been creative and mixed it up and tried new things and gone around two or three times for me it's even getting a little played out, so I play less. Maybe only 4 nights a week instead of 7. ;)

Though, hackers certainly aren't helping the situation to be sure.

Edited August 16, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[BigCountry 26]

It will more than likely be like this....lol

Edited August 16, 2012 by BigCountry

[Demon20 46]

OP, I appreciate the direction you are going with this. I mean, as a potential investor in the DayZ Stand Alone game, I understand why you would be watching those numbers like a hawk. Oh, you're not going to be investing? You're just gonna, maybe, spend the $15 bucks or so to play it? My bad.

Oh, you are worried about those numbers because you work for the PR/Marketing firm that Rocket and BI will be using to pimp the DayZ Stand Alone game. Oh, my bad again, you will just be a player, and not involved in any way in the marketing? I am sorry for that assumption.

Oh, I got it, you made the very common mistake of thinking that this was a full gold title that if the numbers of players dropped below 2 million, EA would pull the plug on the game and you wouldn't be able to play. No, no that's not it. This isn't a full game, it's Alpha. EA doesn't own or distribute the product, it's a mod, so as long as someone is hosting a server you can play with your closest 20 friends. Actually, you can put this on a server for ever if you want.

Sorry, I was really confused. I don't honestly see what a 2% drop in players from one week to the next matters in an Alpha of a mod that is prompting a full game, on a platform that is controlled by players and isnt' costing you a damn thing to play other than your internet access (which you were probably paying for so you could watch those Hello Kitty videos you love...sorry couldn't resist making a snarky comment).

Just let it go man. Don't worry about it. No one is taking your toys away from you. You get to play this mod for ever if you want. It's a mod. Enjoy the game, the experience, the time with friends...the solo time. Leave all the numbers to the cats that worry about getting a return on their investments or understanding their market demographics. You play. Let them worry about that crap.

And for the record, I don't think they are worried about 2% drop between randomly picked week 1 and 2. They hit 1 million folks, sold a lot of copies of a 3 year old game and made enough money to invest in a stand alone version of a buggy experimental mod.

I think for once my good man, that all is good in the world and just. Enjoy it. And stop worrying about things that don't matter. Lighten up and have fun.

Out.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Sorry, I was really confused. I don't honestly see what a 2% drop in players from one week to the next matters in an Alpha of a mod that is prompting a full game, on a platform that is controlled by players and isnt' costing you a damn thing to play other than your internet access

Dude, he's just fucking bringing it up for discussion.

I love how you go on to tell him to "relax" and "lighten up" when your post is 100x more inflammatory and emotional than his.

You're the one that needs to lighten the fuck up.

I'm a huge supporter of this mod, fully aware of what it means to be Alpha, very calm about the state of things, patient with the dev team, etc. but even I am concerned about a drop from 220k daily players to 150k in such a short period of time. That's a ~30% drop, not 2% and Alpha or not it shows a waning interest and I think it's probably not a bad idea to discuss why it's happening like mature adults, eh?

Fewer players means less word of mouth which is critical for a game that probably won't have a huge advertising budget. There's nothing insulting in pointing this out and asking what can be done about it.

Jesus.

Edited August 16, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[sonicrainbrony 136]

People have lives and don't play every day.

/thread

[Travst 8]

A lot of kids are back in school as well.

[Zarathustra (DayZ) 87]

Just to let you know, the 'players in the last 24h figure' was over 200,000 in late July. You can find the celebratory threads on the forum if you use the search. So the loss is actually worse than you make out - down by about 50,000 in a few weeks.

My reason for ceasing? Hackers. The game is, as far as I'm concerned, unplayable in that respect. I don't mind dying to bug, glitches and other players - but hackers? No. They've sucked all the enjoyment out of the game.

I'll return for the stand-alone though, as I'm sure many will.

[Heiduk 265]

I don't know if the mod is dying like some are claiming but the number of players has been pretty steadily declining for the past 10 days or so. From http://arma2.swec.se/game/statistics:

It is pretty clear to me that we are in the middle of a transitional period so I'm happy to give Rocket et al., the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, it is also clear that they have some significant work to do to get their house in order and turn this into a functional game. They've demonstrated a good idea that interests a lot of people but can they turn that idea into something that keeps those people interested for more than a few weeks?

Maybe the fanboys are right and standalone will fix everything or maybe it will be a poorly executed mess of half-finished ideas, who knows. I'm hoping for the former and I'll certainly be sticking around to find out.

[Lennsik 176]

Uh. People. You do realize it's mid-August and that huge portion of our player base probably is going to school/college again now.

[fink2011 0]

Probably has something to do with people not playing the game every day.

As long as th 24 hour number is above 100k, Dayz is still doing far better than most online games out there.

[Blakorr 77]

lately i've been playing a lot less because to me, it feels like the game has gotten stale. everyone i come across is hostile now, so there's really no incentive to try and be friendly with other people. it's far too easy to get top-tier equipment thanks to hackers and dupers who leave tents full of their loot all over the place. even playing as a bandit has lost its excitement. i might try playing on lingor just for the excitement of discovering a new map, but i know that even that will eventually get boring after a while, especially if everyone there goes straight to being hostile.

[Blakorr 77]

you know something's wrong when you can consistently find a high-end sniper, ghillie suit, and vehicle within 15 minutes of respawning. it's like all the challenge has been sucked out of the game.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Blakorr

[Demon20 46]

Dude, he's just fucking bringing it up for discussion.

I love how you go on to tell him to "relax" and "lighten up" when your post is 100x more inflammatory and emotional than his.

You're the one that needs to lighten the fuck up.

I'm a huge supporter of this mod, fully aware of what it means to be Alpha, very calm about the state of things, patient with the dev team, etc. but even I am concerned about a drop from 220k daily players to 150k in such a short period of time. That's a ~30% drop, not 2% and Alpha or not it shows a waning interest and I think it's probably not a bad idea to discuss why it's happening like mature adults, eh?

Fewer players means less word of mouth which is critical for a game that probably won't have a huge advertising budget. There's nothing insulting in pointing this out and asking what can be done about it.

Jesus.

Seriously, I am pretty light about it. That is kinda the point of the post. There's nothing to get worked up over. We're the players, not the producers or developers or marketers. So we should play and leave them to their business.

He wanted a discussion? Like the last 30 guys that said DayZ was dying, that no one was playing, no one would play past all the hackers, snipers, KoS rules of play and over powered sniper rifles...and how did those discussions end? The same as this one...it's moot. A moot point in the end because more people are trying the game. To your point of word of mouth, I think it's working. You want to talk statistics, how about more than one week to the next. How about running reports once things are stable and it's a real game. How about those who have access to the hive databases and can track things much better than we can looking in the upper right hand corner of a web site. I do network analysis in my day job, it takes more than a 10 day trend or a comparison from 1 week to another to prove or show things.

I appreciate your points brother, but I am not emotional nor 100x more than the original post. I was stating facts. The facts are that OP can keep playing, there's really no danger here. No one is gonna pull the plug. DayZ isn't dying. The sky isn't falling. It's safe to play.

Out.

[crockett (DayZ) 41]

Officially I'm one of the numbers that are no longer counted but I'm still playing. The hacking on the public servers pretty much did me in I was killed on my last 3 attempts by hackers and I always played in less populated servers. Added to this I almost never found anyone to kill because I was being forced to play on low populated servers yet my average life only lasted about 24hours.

I'm still playing but I'm now playing on a private hive that I found and while it's not perfect it's 1000% better than the public servers as I've yet to run into a single hacker since making the switch and I'm actually playing on more populated servers. Dayz is actually fun when you don't get killed every survival attempt, by some script kiddie that knows exactly where you are on the map. I guess it helps to have active admins to ban hackers/dupers.

Added bonus even though I'm playing on servers with more numbers than I did while played on the public Hive.. I've only died 2 times.. Once while trying to hunt out another player but he had back up I didn't know about and 2nd time was trying to get my stuff back after I died. :lol:

Anyway Dayz is suddenly fun with out script kiddies & tents full of every gun in the game from dupers.

Edited August 16, 2012 by crockett

[Vertisce 158]

Holy shit! People have lives and aren't logging into DayZ 24/7! DayZ is DOOOOMED!