Population – MMO Fallout

I didn’t play Lawbreakers this weekend. I did the last free weekend, and at some point on Friday had the intention of downloading it again to play for the weekend and, considering the $15 price tag, perhaps finally buy it. But something stopped me from even bothering to download the client for free, investing little more than the few hours of weekend time that I could give to this title: The player count.

I’d consider it a bad sign if the peak population of Lawbreakers topped out at one thousand on a free weekend, but it didn’t. No, Lawbreakers peaked out Friday night at 420 concurrent users, then Saturday night at 378 and Sunday night at 266. By this morning, the game is already back down to the low teens. Naturally the Saturday and Sunday population figures don’t come into count when talking about my decisions on Friday, but in consideration of the fact that the last free weekend for Lawbreakers drew in a peak of over one thousand and this weekend looked like it couldn’t hit half of that, I came to the conclusion that even putting in the time to download would be meaningless as there was no chance of me buying the game and supporting a dead community.

It is a pretty safe bet that I’m not the only person who either looked at the population figures and turned the other way or actually downloaded the game and ended up scoffing at just how few people are even willing to give the game a try for absolutely free. Boss Key Productions has called this game a “marathon, not a sprint,” but the game is constantly losing momentum and at this point will need a miracle in order to reverse the trend.

Perhaps Boss Key Studios should hire the No Man’s Sky developers on as consultants, there is a game that managed to patch up what seemed to be a sunken ship and turned it into a rather popular title in the course of a year.

[NM] Lawbreakers Population Before Free Weekend Is Fitting

Lawbreakers is currently 50% off in preparation for a free weekend which starts on Thursday and runs through Sunday, and while the sale is a nice jump on the pre-holiday mass discounts, the need for a free weekend can not be better shown than through the screenshot above. While bringing up the announcement, we seem to have hit the page at just the right time, either through statistical anomaly (servers down) or sheer luck, Lawbreakers was at 0 players. That was last night, this morning the game isn’t doing much better with a whole 14 people worldwide breaking the law.

Boss Key Studios has referred to its strategy as a marathon, not a sprint, but with the game failing to both attract new players and retain its existing customer base, it looks more like Lawbreakers is jogging in place as the competition leaves it in the dust. As a multiplayer-only game, Lawbreakers’ population issues are almost self-defeating, as people are reluctant to buy a game with a low population, thus causing more population issues. What Lawbreakers needs is a big push in players who keep coming back, say spurred by a free weekend.

(Source: Steam Charts)

Battleborn Ceasing Development Support After Fall Update

As they say, all good things must come to an end, and they also say that development costs money and money doesn’t grow on trees. Gearbox Software has announced that this fall’s update to Battleborn will be the last. The fall update was announced at PAX and includes new skins, map and balance tweaks, as well as new boosts and taunts.

But never fear, those of you who actually bought this game and intend on continuing to play it. The servers for Battleborn will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Never fear! Battleborn is here to stay. Nothing is changing with Battleborn, and the servers will be up and active for the foreseeable future. We announced the Fall Update for the game at PAX including some new skins, themed around some of your favorite Borderlands characters! That update will also include some updated title art (more full bar titles!) for the more significant challenges in the game, as well as some additional Finisher Boosts and Taunts. Also, there are minor balance changes in that patch.

Creative director Randy Varnell has moved on to new projects, likely including Borderlands 3, which 90% of the Gearbox staff is currently working on. Battleborn launched in May 2016 and got lost in the midst of Overwatch’s massive overtaking of first person shooters. On Saturday night, the game peaked at 106 players on PC.

(Source: Battleborn)

[NM] Lawbreakers Discussing Marketing, Dismisses Free To Play

Lawbreakers launched nearly one month ago, and suffice to say the game hasn’t been that well received on PC. Despite boasting a “mostly positive” review score from those who did pick up the title, the population peaked at 3,000 and has plummeted to a present 163 concurrent users as of 9am EST on a Wednesday morning as of this writing (by comparison, the recently free Brink has 813 people playing). Cliff Bleszinski has called the game a “marathon, not a sprint,” dismissing concerns over population issues and expressing hope that the game will see an increase in players over time.

But if you’re holding out for free to play, it isn’t being discussed. Over on the Steam forums, when asked about plans to address low traffic, the following response was given:

To answer the original question “when”, I can only say “soon”. We had roadmap meetings with Boss Key last week on what they have planned for the rest of the year. We’re working out a marketing plan to support that new content and reach out to more people. We’re also doing regular updates to the game based on player feedback, so we are listening and acting on the issues that come up.

We are committed to the long-term success of the game. And no, we are not discussing F2P.

The person quoted is a representative of Nexon, the publisher of Lawbreakers. The statement was later reiterated in the same thread:

We are not discussing F2P, and the OP is correct, it doesn’t really solve more issues than it brings with it. We are still working on patches (next one is next week), future content as well as addressing player pop.

Boss Key’s plans to revitalize the game will have to be seen, but at its current trajectory the game is going to need a big marketing push in order to get its name out there.

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