I had this beating Hogwarts/BG3/Cyberpunk on Steam. I’ve definitely been humbled in that regards.
I 100% underestimated the power of the TES/Fallout name brand recognition. TES6 is going to be so massive that it kind of breaks my brain thinking about it.
I was also expecting a much higher Steam concurrent, was unsure about 1 million concurrent but definite;y expected to to beat FO4 easily
I think the combination of the somewhat divisive review scores, early access but most importantly Game Pass neutered the Steam count by a fair bit
The fact that 3/4’s of that 1 million concurrent player count came from the xbox eco-system alone says a lot
But Steam concurrent doesn’t anything long term anyway, as long as people are playing/buying long term whether that’s GP or Steam, that’s what will really matter and I have no doubts about that at all
There’s different dynamics now. Game Pass and $70 price tag. Think we are already at a point where we should assume PC Game Pass is taking a chunk from Steam sales. I’ve seen a lot of people who are posting themselves downloading early access it was on the Windows app.
I think much more are playing through Game Pass and the Windows Store than we are thinking. All other games only came on Steam i think, so it is no surprise it had more players on Steam. The game is still doing extremely well though, Steam is just a part of it.
BG3 wasn’t at its highest immediately as well, so we will have to wait a bit more to see how it evolves. But yeah, the game is doing really well.
I don’t think gamepass is the biggest reason why it didn’t do Fallout numbers.
I think it’s because we really underestimated how popular Fallout and TES is. We’re talking about arguably the 2 biggest single player IP’s in the PC realm.
We all just inherently assumed Starfield would match that when in reality, Starfield is a completely new IP that doesn’t have any historical legacy. It’s creating its own legacy in real time right now.
Of 1 million concurents, only 1/4 were on steam. Unless we think Console makes up an overwhelming majority of the remaining 3/4, PC Game Pass made a huge difference.
Don’t worry. Xbox tax tax will save your brain.
I never said gamepass didn’t make a difference. I’m saying I don’t think it’s the main reason. I just think with hindsight, it was pretty unfair of us to expect a new IP to perform like historical IP’s in Fallout and TES.
Also I do 100% believe Console is where the majority of people are playing Starfield on. Probably 70/30 skewed to Condole.
IP is definitely a likely factor too, but Game Pass has to have an effect as well. Don’t mean biggest effect, but rally doesn’t seem outrageous to assume it could’ve taken on the verge of 30% of Steam sales if not more.
Yeah, I completely agree.
To match Fallout 4’s max concurrent were really only talking about an extra 200k of the 750k+ that was in the Xbox ecosystem. I think it’s pretty likely that it had similar PC numbers as Fallout 4.
I have absolutely no idea why anyone expected a huge steam concurrent total when it’s on gamepass. Why would people who sub to Pc gamepass bother buying it?
Given many huge games have peak concurrents under 200K I expected around that level unless it went absolutely bananas sales wise which it apparently has done.
Which is why I said Hogwarts, BG3 & Cyberpunk of the worlds. Not Fallout 4 specifically.
PC landscape is vastly bigger now than what it was in 2015. I don’t doubt Starfield would of matched Fallout 4 or get close to it without Gamepass.
I think it’s how demanding this game is. This game isn’t optimized that well, so I could see some opting to play this on xbox or even gamepass to see how it is on cloud. I know not many own xbox consoles, but I believe some opted to play this game outside of PC because they might not have the build to enjoy this game.
I haven’t seen it mentioned, but I’ve been getting so much Deus Ex vibes from it that I wonder if it was actually an inspiration. Some of the interior environments and even some visual design, it’s that kind of environment and atmosphere that I get so intimate with. I’m spending what’s probably an unhealthy amount of time just looking at every corner and prop in those interiors 
The fact that there’s a mech in game in the one museum (who knows, there could be others but I haven’t found them) makes it entirely plausible thst there could be mech combat in some future official story stuff. At the very least it means it’s likely there could be a mod.
