The reason for DoC's decline may possibly have begun in Q4 2013 | Forums

[Zugman]

I just discovered Steam Charts, and took a look at DoC's Steam historical peak usage, which can be found here: http://steamcharts.com/app/256410#All

If you trace the data back as far as it goes, you'll see that users via Steam were at a high of 6,333 back in late October, 2013, but a mere year later peak usage was 858, and basically declined afterwards.

A few caveats on this data:

1) it's a measure of peak usage, or in other words, the most DoC Steam players logged in at one time per month. The average players column is a different measure; I'm guessing it probably measures the daily average number of players for a given month, which is probably a little more useful for measuring player activity. However, it tells basically the same story - that player count dropped off precipitously over only one year.

2) the biggest losses in players actually occurred between Oct. 2013 and March 2014. In other words, the most significant drop in players happened very fast

3) the most important caveat is that this is only for Steam players, and it only goes back as far as Oct. 28, 2013 Unless the change in Steam users is proportionate to the change in total (Steam and non-Steam) players since the beginning, and how that number has changed over time, then the Steam Charts data doesn't really tell us the whole story. This other thread has a good estimate for total number, but it's also missing the earliest months of the game, and it's still just an estimate: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...on-user-levels. Maybe the actual number of active players has had big ups and downs all over the place, or maybe it's been one big decline after a strong start to the game, or maybe some other pattern.

Here is a plausible, but not certain, interpretation of the Steam Charts data combined with the data in dale533's thread referenced above:

Ubisoft was actually pretty successful at getting new players to sign up for the game (see dale 533's thread, which shows strong increases in new players until about March 2014), until early 2014 when increases in new players seemingly slowed down. However, the number of people who not only started the game but also continued to play the game probably decreased substantially throughout 2014. People were definitely still playing the game over that time period, but there was not a lot of growth in users, and quite possibly even a decline in activity. At the very least, players using Steam jumped ship quite rapidly.

IF my above interpretation is basically accurate (and it certainly might not be), then here is how I think it might tie in to DoC's decline:

As I understand, the data presented are from well before BlueByte had anything to do with this game. I was not playing the game back then, but I also understand that there were more generous freebies via daily rewards, tournaments, and such. I think maintaining profitability for a F2P game is very tricky, because you want to offer enough freebies to attract new players, and to keep old ones coming online, and to generally make it an attractive and fun way to spend time. However, to some extent, freebies surely decrease the willingness of players to shell out $$$ for goodies (why pay for something with real money when you can get it for free?), and Ubisoft only makes money on the game through those player purchases. I don't know what % of players actually spend/spent money on this game, but I'm guessing the player base has to be quite large to support and justify continued development, and pay for all those hefty programmer salaries (even if the game used some other model besides F2P + in-game purchases, I'm guessing it would take a lot of players to keep the game financially sound on an ongoing basis). As I have heard, Ubisoft tamed down the generosity of freebies at some point, and whenever it happened, it probably made the game less attractive for new and old players, even if it was meant to increase the game's revenue. THEN, add into the mix the arrival of Hearthstone in March 2014 - a simpler to play, nicer-looking, less buggy game with a stronger brand name and fan base behind it, and lots more financial resources to market and improve it (Activision Blizzard is a much more financially healthy company than Ubisoft).

With all of that in mind, it's no wonder DoC has shrunk to what it is now! People kept leaving the game as it became relatively stingier, as high-quality and easy-to-play alternatives like Hearthstone arrived (even though I think HS is a fairly dumb/simple game, I also think it is done very well, and therefore high-quality), and as fewer people continued to play the game (since CCGs are made more fun by an active and growing player base, and less fun by the opposite). I have seen a lot of people blame BB for their handling of the game, but, while players' dissatisfaction with the game since BB took over is genuine and understandable, I think the real story behind how it got to this point is that starting back in 2013, Ubisoft was unable to keep players - especially new players - sticking around to play the game.

[planeswalker17]

The short version of that graph is actually quite simple.

DoC was released on Steam at the beginning of the graph (nov. 7th 2013). There was a huge influx of new players from there, combined with possibly the only time on DoC history when a generous external promotion was made to help newbies: http://eu.alienwarearena.com/giveawa...ns-starter-box

I remember that by early December 2013 the jackpot had around 10000 players participating every day. It was awesome. But as it would be expected, many of the new players which had joined after the Steam release started leaving, probably to try other stuff, like HS, as you mentioned. DoC is a great game, but unfortunately it has a steep learning curve and the old ELO system was not friendly at all.

And the 3 slight temporary player increases during 2014 are due to the new expansions being released. There's also another (barely perceptible) on April 2015, when ToR released.


Anyway, in my opinion, from some point in time onwards they just released expansions too fast between each other (3 months), and took too long to fix some basic bugs and balance cards.

[dale533]

Here is a plausible, but not certain, interpretation of the Steam Charts data combined with the data in dale533's thread referenced above:

Thanks for the reference. I will certainly agree (and have stated) that the numbers I post are by no means indicative of the number of active players. Based on glances at the "friends" I have collected along the way, I would be very surprised if any more than 10 to 15% of those numbers are active players. Perhaps 100 of those friends were collected more than a year ago, and another 30 or so collected after more recent duels when I was playing four or five months ago.

Here is a chart of numbers and ranks for my list of friends, FWIW.

level     active  inactive  below cut off
champ       8       13         0
L.Com       6       35         6
Com         4       18         7
Knight      3       27         1
Squire      3        7         0
Recruit     0       10         0
totals     24       14       100

Those counts represent 28% of the 138 friends being active -- but as I said above, I think that the percentage is much lower in the sample of friends collected more than a year ago than it is in the friends collected this year.

The "below cut off number" are those (who in my understanding) would be demoted on the next reset of levels. They are playing, but have a score below that of the inactive people at that level.

I've also had ten recruits, and only the two most recent seem to still be active. One of them has made it to level 90, champ II, another has just worked up to squire(level 22). Some of them barely played at all -- recruit level 2. I am very thankful that one of the recruits has decided to spend real money and buy seals -- I got 10% of the seals bought! :-}}

[Nillicomes]

As i remember it, the game was peaking around R2P in 2013 and that was as you say in October that year.
Then was some expansions released a bit too fast and the new economy system was really bad compared to the old one - especially no seal gain from leveling up!

[Milky97]

As i remember it, the game was peaking around R2P in 2013 and that was as you say in October that year.
Then was some expansions released a bit too fast and the new economy system was really bad compared to the old one - especially no seal gain from leveling up!

Nah the economic change was much later. Also i think the peak was a few month after the r2p because of steam release, so in decembre 2013 iirc. The 5T were released with which many ppl felt unhappy because it didn't include many good cards (or cards that were playable at top niveau). The main reason for the decline was the meta i think. Kelthor was jus too good and too easy to obtain, which maid if unfun for many people in the 1k-1,5k elo area (new players realize that back then a different elo system was working), because they had to play kelthor to get to 1,5k really, because so many did it and most other decks would loose against it (especially for players who were yet not pro).

[gabusan2]

Any free to play game needs to keep free players playing so it has a substantial player base while attracting players that spend money on the game to compete with the free to play crowd.

I think DoC failed at the second part. I always found opponents fast in matchmaking, so I think there was plenty of people playing. It had to be the "players that spend money" part that failed. Next free to play game you do, I recommend you to have a strategy for that, because you obviously did not have one. I think Heart of Storm and similar games make money because of the goodwill of players that buy aesthetic items to support the game. Maybe you could try that, creating goodwill among the player base so they invest money to support the game. Your stupid quiz contests (who the hell comes up with these ideas?) are creating 0 goodwill on me, so maybe that is not the way to go.

Personally, I am done with this model. No point busting my *** grinding to get cards if the game closes when I already managed to get everything. Happened to me already twice, this game and Scrolls. Never again. I will just find some other hobby.

[Zugman]

dale533, great data and analysis, as usual! Good job on your recruiting efforts. I'm glad at least one of them paid off for you :-)

And the rest of you have shared great thoughts, too. I have some additional thoughts based off of what you've said:

First, I'm surprised that some of you said you thought too many expansions too fast was a problem! Usually, players like to see new cards, but I suppose if each release introduces too many bugs, or is overly disruptive to the meta, that could be seen as a bad thing. Or maybe I'm missing something else?

Second, a few of you mentioned the change in the economy system as a negative factor. What was so bad about it? I can understand that, for instance, no longer gaining seals from leveling up would be an unpopular change, but did that actually make the game worse? I suppose whether it made the game worse doesn't matter if we're mainly looking at player interest and loyalty.

Third, Milky97 and gabusan2, you discussed the interaction between the meta, the newness of players, and revenue generation. As I rambled about in my original post, I think that is a really tricky dynamic for game developers. Milky97, I think I can understand what you mean about how an unbalanced meta can annoy veterans even as it draws in newer players. Although I'm by no means a pro, I'm experienced enough to find it really annoying to see the same few predictable decks played by relatively unskilled players - and of course, it is much more annoying if I have a hard time beating those decks! gabusan2, I think you're probably right that DoC failed to get enough paying players on board and/or it failed to keep them playing. And furthermore, that other games, like Heart of the Storm, seemingly are able to cash in on the goodwill of players through small-ish aesthetic purchases, which DoC didn't try for some reason (perhaps because of not enough goodwill, as you suggested).

I'm starting to wonder if the F2P model just doesn't work for games which seek to be both strategically deep and highly attractive to lots of players. I even wonder if seemingly more successful games like Hearthstone will also lose player interest in not too long, if their main focus remains, in my view, to attract lots of players, rather than to create a deeper game (I could certainly be wrong, though). I'm honestly not convinced that games with a pronounced strategic element can even be sustained by a F2P model, even though that model does help make the game easier to spread.

[Blitz556]

^Most mobas are strategically deep while tries to appeal to a vast crowd while maintaining a FTP model.

Nah the economic change was much later. Also i think the peak was a few month after the r2p because of steam release, so in decembre 2013 iirc. The 5T were released with which many ppl felt unhappy because it didn't include many good cards (or cards that were playable at top niveau). The main reason for the decline was the meta i think. Kelthor was jus too good and too easy to obtain, which maid if unfun for many people in the 1k-1,5k elo area (new players realize that back then a different elo system was working), because they had to play kelthor to get to 1,5k really, because so many did it and most other decks would loose against it (especially for players who were yet not pro).

Okay I luckily wanted see how this game was doing and just HAD to reply to this. As someone who played a lot during back then and 5T expansion I can assure you the vast majority like me didn't necessarily leave bacuase of Kelthor. Yeah he was good at one point but he got nerfed quick enough to prevent any serious damage. And I never liked Kelthor and his Vultures and Brutes much so I clearly remember feeling relieved. What killed the game, other than the questionable economic decisions and lack of proper maintainance, was the rampant growth of a control meta that I believe most of us poor people used to call "solitaire playing". People just played to get certain cards while the other guy just played to get the counters. Whoever got their desired card faster won, no strings attached. The games were practically fraustrating and went on for a long time. Hakeem Mill, Dhamiria control, awesome cards like Mass Rage... yeah. You either played blind rush like Zezebeth (or w/e that inferno rush hero is called) or go control. Matches often became pure rock-paper-scissor where certain decks stood no chance against certain decks almost regardless of skill level.

So yeah, I am afraid anyone thinking the Kelthor meta was responsible is being... delusional. The true decline hit much afterwards. At this rate people would go and start blaming even earlier Crag Hack or Yukiko meta for the decline while turining away from the problem.

Now I do remember a bunch of other things some people said back then to defend that situation but no point in bringing those back for no good reason.

[Milky97]

What you describe happened for about 3-4month after the kelthor meta at which point there were already much much less players. And i dont really think i am being delusional, but maybe consider that i have a bigger picture than you considering i was involved on the balancing process at each of those points. So while what you say might be true for yourself and for sure also a number of other players, And those are probaly the persons you talked with, so you get this impression, however i don't think you have the data to compare that number to other numbers at different points in time.

[Zugman]

^Most mobas are strategically deep while tries to appeal to a vast crowd while maintaining a FTP model.

Fair point, except that I think MOBAs are a fundamentally different category of game from CCGs. MOBAs are more exciting to play, flashier, and have a stronger, more established e-sports appeal to generate interest. CCGs, on the other hand, are slower and relatively less exciting to watch and even to play (but, IMO more satisfying). That said, most of my MOBA experience is in the Starcraft series, which is not F2P, and maybe not representative of the genre in general.