Steam CCUs aren't the ultimate data point, not with PlayStation around
- Thread starter Gaiff
- Start date
Puscifer
Member
Not to mention once again with the closing of Tango Microsoft themselves don't even know how to quantify that data
Last edited:
Magic Carpet
Gold Member
Nowadays The only metric of success is if the studio and the employees are still around after launch.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
Bad data is worse than no data.
People trying to extrapolate value out of CCU is a big problem if your goal is serious analysis. Similar with the famitsu and media create charts that exclude digital. Without knowing the digital ratio of titles, people make massive assumptions Those assumptions might have been more accurate 7-8 years ago, but now? They're baseless.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
People will always push data sets regardless of value, especially if there is nothing tangibly better.
We've been using famitsu and media create for decades (RIP dengeki) and it becomes a habit and routine.
It would be like using Nielsen ratings in an age of streaming... but the difference is Nielsen adapted and moved to include streaming...
ChorizoPicozo
Member
... i think everyone knows that. but you are missing the point:
Companies want money + media in cahoots with publishers/devs to frame a narrative = one-sided discourse (PR-Marketing)
enter: The "Internet Army" who reflects more closely the point of view of the enthusiastic masses (gamers/consumers) = a counterweight to the "official narrative". (which is good)
If this:
can be framed as a success.
then this:
can be framed as a flop.
videos likes these:
are what the gaming media should be doing. Instead, they are not only failing to inform but actually mislead, run damage control for these companies, and even actively attacking gamers/consumers.
in one of the examples you mention (Silent Hill 2)
the split between PC and Console is irrelevant when the game sold 2M in 3 months. The low steam CCUs number just reinforce a low interest in the game across the board.
tha same can be seen with Indiana Jones
analog_future
Resident Crybaby
Game Pass isn’t free.
Topher
Identifies as young
I mean, yeah, a genuinely bad game that has bad reviews and overall has no redeeming value is probably not going to perform poorly no matter what platform. That's not what I'm talking about. Indiana Jones had 4 million players according to MS in January. And yet their Steam CCU barely went above 12k. If we look at Spider-man and God of War CCU then we would have to conclude that the games flopped on PS.
Look at the top games for PS and Steam last month by engagement per Circana. We are not even talking about the same games except for one.
Humdinger
Gold Member
I agree, it's an unreliable metric. To get some sense of that, look at the different sites that use Steam CCU data to predict sales. With Veilguard, for instance, their predictions varied by a factor of 10. After about two weeks, one site said it sold 200K, another said 2 million, and the other sites said somewhere in between. With variance that wide, you aren't dealing with a reliable metric.
However, it's all we have in many cases, so people focus on it.
However, it's all we have in many cases, so people focus on it.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Not really. There are analysts that use the Steam CCU to calculate (quite accurately) the total number of copies sold on Steam.
In an era where companies are hiding meaningful numbers more and more, Steam CCU is probably the only unofficial metric that can paint an accurate picture of sales.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
It generates no additional revenue if an existing subscriber plays a new game.
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Naw, haven't seen anyone extrapolate the CCU numbers to anything meaningful and matching real-life numbers. Feel free to show us. SteamDB estimated sales are a joke.
Last edited:
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
There are plenty of examples. You have track them at a given point of time though.
One recent example that pops into head was the ~4 million Starfield copies sold on Steam. It was pretty much exactly in line with the Steam sales estimate (extrapolated by Steam CCU) at that time.
I was monitoring it closely at that time.
yamaci17
Gold Member
yeah I play on ubisoft connect as well
also have a lot of friends that play on ubisoft connect. because ubisoft cares about regional pricing, and also has 20% discount price. that 20% thing alone causes a huge majority of people to just get the game on ubisoft connect
i just hope ac shadows turns out to be a success for ubisoft. the game is really really great. I want more AC games in this new improved engine
also have a lot of friends that play on ubisoft connect. because ubisoft cares about regional pricing, and also has 20% discount price. that 20% thing alone causes a huge majority of people to just get the game on ubisoft connect
i just hope ac shadows turns out to be a success for ubisoft. the game is really really great. I want more AC games in this new improved engine
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
The biggest issue with using Steam CCU to draw a definitive conclusion is that it is 1 of a whole bunch of data points, so any conclusion drawn will paint an incomplete picture.
It's like putting 2 pieces of a 16 piece jigsaw puzzle together saying the puzzle is shit because you put 2 sky pieces of a landscape and didn't see the rest of the image. As long as the other platforms insist on not sharing their numbers, we have to wait for official numbers from a developer/publisher or estimates from market researchers, etc. But we're not patient enough for that.
Look at AC Shadows. As of right now, all time concurrent peak on Steam is just under 65k players, but according to Ubisoft, over 2 million people have installed or downloaded the game. That is a huge discrepancy and a sign that you shouldn't be using Steam CCU to determine how a game is doing.
It's like putting 2 pieces of a 16 piece jigsaw puzzle together saying the puzzle is shit because you put 2 sky pieces of a landscape and didn't see the rest of the image. As long as the other platforms insist on not sharing their numbers, we have to wait for official numbers from a developer/publisher or estimates from market researchers, etc. But we're not patient enough for that.
Look at AC Shadows. As of right now, all time concurrent peak on Steam is just under 65k players, but according to Ubisoft, over 2 million people have installed or downloaded the game. That is a huge discrepancy and a sign that you shouldn't be using Steam CCU to determine how a game is doing.
PeteBull
Member
That 2m players can be mostly from ubi sub service, aka 18usd/month(or w/e pricing it is in other countries, 3-4x lower vs full purchase of the game).
We can easily extrapolate roughly if AC:S was major success or if it was huge bomb, from steam ccu numbers, so far we can tell it wasnt either, it didnt bomb, and it wasnt major success, so rest to figure out is 1 out of 3 other options:
1)performed below expectactions
2)roughly broke even
3)was mild success
We cant tell which of those 3 AC:S is of right now, but give it time and we will, since in few weeks we will keep receiving more of sales data
Wilhelm_85
Gold Member
It's helpful as a point of data that can't be fudged, but you always need to take into context the release conditions (platforms, Game Pass, etc.) and likely audience of a game.
ClosBSAS
Member
Lol what? CCU is for steam games only. Imagine creating a thread cause ur a sony fanboy thinking that CCU is the way to measure sales. CCU is just a metric for steam to measure and if you multiply it by around 7 o 8 you get an approximate sales number, that is all it is, no ody ever said it was a way to measure total sales on all platforms or the success of a game outside of steam itself
Lokaum D+
Member
is Luke a grifter now ?
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
I think that is largely irrelevant. If Ubisoft thought 2 million people playing through their subscription service was going to be detrimental to the game's revenue, they wouldn't be offering it at a discount there. My guess - and this is anecdotal/hypothetical - is that buying the game at a discount, or getting it as part of a service you're paying for monthly makes users more likely to spend money on in game mtx and over time that brings their overall spend on the game close to, or over the full price.
In my line of work, that's the theory we would take into a series of user interviews to determine if it made sense to put new games on Ubisoft Connect. I imagine that's the exercise they went through when they launched whatever it was called before Uplay.
Source: I almost worked for Ubisoft a few years ago before realizing what a shit show it was from the interview process.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
videos likes these...are what the gaming media should be doing.
Instead
they (media) are not only failing to inform but actually mislead, run damage control for these companies, and even actively attacking gamers/consumers.
Lokaum D+
Member
ah, ok sry
//DEVIL//
Member
u didnt have to drink all this much just to play sonic generations. its not that bad :/I did my part
Yoda
Member
If it was a useless metric Ubisoft wouldn't have tried getting steam to hide the metric. To your point about playstation stats not being publicly known, thus can't possibly know the true picture; some rather basic statistics can be applied knowing previous sales breakdown (console vs. PC), the trend of the ratio of those categories, and the trend of which category for a particular franchise is growing/shrinking and a good enough estimate on sales can be derived. The harsh reality is when game companies do shady shit ppl want to see them get a loud signal management can't ignore so they make their games better. For AC:Shadow, it's clearly a flop given the amount that's riding on it (4 years stock decline, hostile takeover, recent mega flop (star wars), etc...). And despite your disdain for agenda driven analysis, this game obviously had one as well, claiming it should thus be above the fray strikes me as contradictory.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Did I say that in the OP?
Come On Tars
Member
Idk how it works but Ubisoft is public so won’t they release sales data eventually?
Unknown Soldier
Member
Steam CCU's are the ONLY free publicly available data point
The problem has always been that Circana (formerly NPD) charges a hefty amount of money for their data but it's always been publicly available, you just needed to be willing to pay for it
The problem has always been that Circana (formerly NPD) charges a hefty amount of money for their data but it's always been publicly available, you just needed to be willing to pay for it
Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
They won't the only reason Steam shares such data is because Valve is so open and laissez-faire. They are also a private company so they're not under pressure from public investors.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Circana/NPD data is not public. If you subscribe to their service you can't publicly disclose or distribute their data without their consent. You're only allowed to use it based on their terms and conditions.
EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
This.
Its even more odd cause they'd disregard other titles that have moved record numbers, simply not on PC.
Call Of Duty, FIFA, GTA and AC (and lots of other IP) move more units on consoles, to the point of breaking many records, but their sales on Steam are really low, but this can't be some thing where the CCU would mean anything, on a platform the title has little history doing well in.
That is like saying a game is breaking records for a publisher around the world, but on Nintendo Switch, this title isn't moving more numbers then Mario and then making it sound like the game is a flop, cause its numbers on Switch.
Example.
Dragon Age actually outsold Call Of Duty Black Ops 6 on Steam....
‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Sets EA, BioWare Playercount Records On Steam
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a hit. After largely positive reviews, that appears to have translated into sales and a playercount that has broken records on PC.
www.forbes.com
So...using this strange, slow logic, Call Of Duty Black Ops 6 failed and MS should be worried, as it um "should have" sold more (not even sure where the fuck anyone is getting that it should btw lol)
Yet...Call Of Duty Black Ops 6 is the biggest Call Of Duty launch in the series history. Do we have some threads making a claim that its not cause Steam CCU or Steam Sales or?
https://www.ign.com/articles/call-o...ever-sets-new-single-day-game-pass-sub-record
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is biggest release in history
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 had its biggest three-day opening sales in the 20-plus year history of the franchise, Microsoft announced in its earnings call today.
venturebeat.com
Why would that make any more sense with AC Shadows?
Unknown Soldier
Member
Technically Steam isn't sharing the data either, it's being scraped by sites like SteamDB
The real question is why Steam doesn't care enough to make that data completely inaccessible
Last edited:
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
The CCU was originally meant for Steam players to discuss about the games. Over time as Steam gets more popular, the console fanboys starts to misconstrue it and using it for console warring purpose, and now console fans want to take over the narrative and tell people that CCU is not important and shits.
Unknown Soldier
Member
I mean, this is also true of things like subscribing to Bloomberg Terminal and people share stuff from there all the time
It's more an issue of Circana data being only really interesting to a tiny number of people who are all industry insiders, none of them have any reason to share the data
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Pretty sure steamcharts is from Steam, not a third-party.
Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
They are sharing their data. Steam has an API that developers can plugin to which has a lot of data like this available. It's similar to what Blizzard does with WoW and Overwatch they have an API that websites tap into to get their data. This is how overwatch sites have detailed data on most played heroes, comps, average length of matches etc. A lot of games have something similar Steam does the same.
Steam also has parts of the site that show CCDs for Steam itself like the download steam page, that too is a classic approach something many games did back in the day like EvE Online where they show the total amount of online players at login to highlight how big their online world is.
Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
Nope Steam charts is 3rd party but the data they have is directly from Steam via the API Valve allows developers to use. The data is 100% from Steam but the website is 3rd party.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Ah, I thought SteamDB was third-party but steamcharts was from Steam.
pasterpl
Member
Steam CCU is a great metric indicating how the game did on Steam - even on PC there are multiple different launchers, big AAA and even AA games rarely launch exclusively on Steam, then you have got multiple subscription services outside of Steam and this is only on PC. Then you have got consoles PS5 with approx 70M users, Xbox Series with over 30M users. (Not mentioning Switch as lots of games skip it). Unfortunately nowadays Steam CCU is the most accurate number we have got for most games sales, at least very early after launch so we keep using and discussing it, and while it can be a game success indication it is in no way full picture for most of the games.
EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
Agreed. This is a great way of putting it.
Some IP have little install base on PC no different then some IP have little fanbase on XB or Nintendo, so it would be hard to get a clear picture on how a Final Fantasy is doing based on its Sales on XB or how a Madden is doing based on its sales on Nintendo Switch or something odd like that.
Steam metric makes sense for IP that have their majority base on PC in the first place, so it can give a solid picture on how a game is doing, that historically has its majority there.
Sentenza
Member
That's simply because you are putting all these sites on the same level, while on the contrary some have a strong reputation for having a good understanding of these stats and some other are notoriously atrocious at it.
Here's the thing. Not only CCU tends to be directly proportional to sale (even if it scales in volume, so the higher the peak, the more one will need lower the multiplicator factor to normalize it) but it's not a number that exists in a vacuum,
You have other factors to track like Steam wishlisting (pre-release) and Steam reviews (not their score, per se, as much as their sheer number) which ALSO tend to be DIRECTLY proportional to sales.
Once you have all these aggregated statistics, you can make estimations that are pretty fucking reliable AND accurate about how a given game is performing on Steam.
And once you have how a game is performing on Steam, I have yet to see a single outlier being a complete disaster there but a megahit elsewhere. Not for concurrent day 1 releases, at least.
Denton
Member
Games like SH2 which sell 80% of copies on PS compared to 20% on PC are pretty rare. For most big marketed AAA games these days, the split is around 40% PC, 40% PS, 20% xbox (obviously it varies, but point is that PC and PS are much closer). And from that, when you have all the information you have on Steam (wishlist placement, bestseller list placement, CCU) you can do some very solid estimation for majority of games.
Some people claim that AC Shadows is similar case as SH2 with it being predominantly console franchise, but is there any data to support that? Previous AC games have been very successful on PC from what I remember.
Some people claim that AC Shadows is similar case as SH2 with it being predominantly console franchise, but is there any data to support that? Previous AC games have been very successful on PC from what I remember.
Sea of Thieves had been on game pass, including PC game pass for YEARS before it even launched on steam, and launched with 60k CCU on steam. So no, a game that releases on steam day one and does 10k CCU was not because it's on gamepass.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
There's obviously no platform split for the AC franchise, but most of Ubisoft's revenue comes from consoles, as per their filings in the most recent earnings report: Ubisoft FY25 Q3 PR (page 6).
It's really not a huge leap to believe that the lion's share of AC sales comes from consoles and not PC.
