In Nili's recent "WTF happened in January" he flashed a screenshot of a graph that shows the number of players using Xbox GamePass and Steam for the various age titles (copied below).
I believe this data is taking the total unique players who have played a ranked 1v1 or TG and looking at their platform. I'm not sure how de-duplication etc. was done, and I'm also not sure if this data is lagged (since it takes 30 days of inactivity to fall off the ladder), but this is the first time we have seen anything that shows the relative sizes of the player bases on each platform.
*A key point is that this is multiplayer numbers only, and doesn't appear to include campaign/AI only players, who make up the majority of the player bases for both games. But assuming that preference to play ranked isn't correlated with Xbox vs Steam use, I think the data is still quite valuable.
Side note: if you made this, please feel free to correct me! I think it was a clever way of getting at the question, and overall Kudos to you! (kind of feels like a Robo thing?)
So looking at the chart, we can see that indeed AoE4 has a much larger portion of it's player base using GamePass, which should come as no surprise given that the 3-month trial was $1 instead of $60+ to purchase the game on steam.
Using this information, we come up with a steam -> total population multiplier of:
AoE2 DE: 1.08
AoE3 DE: 1.07
AoE4: 1.54
Now we can take the latest player count from Steam Charts and use the multiplier to arrive at a much better estimate of total player base size for each game. I am using the January numbers since they won't change day to day, but it should be noted that in the first few days of February AoE4 has continued to decline at a faster rate than AoE2, and I don't think the "trend" of the decline is changing all that much.
January 2022 average player count on steam:
AoE2 DE: 15,017
AoE3 DE: 793
AoE4: 12,137
January 2022 total player count (using multiplier):
AoE2 DE: 16,218
AoE3 DE: 849
AoE4: 18,690
So, it looks like AoE4 had a larger player base across platforms in January 2022.
Now for the caveats:
This is only including AoE2:DE, and does not include AoE2 HD or UserPatch. We can run a similar estimation for AoE2:HD, which gives us:
Aoe2:HD on steam: 4,330
AoE2: HD total (using DE multiplier): 4,676
I won't try to estimate the player base size of those still playing 1v1 black forest no-cut on Voobly, but maybe someone else can chime in.
So if we consider AoE2:HD + AoE2:DE, it's fair to say that AoE2 has a larger player base than AoE4, while just DE is still slightly smaller.
AoE4 is also continuing to shed players, and one of the dangers it faces given the new GamePass data is the looming expiration of the GamePass trial. Given that the other games in the Age Franchise have GamePass numbers that are less than 10% of their total player base, I don't think it is unfair to assume that AoE4 might trend in a similar direction (even if it ends with a larger GamePass population than the other titles). Many AoE4 players will be facing the decision of whether to renew their GamePass subscription (or perhaps even buy AoE4 outright) which puts some additional pressure on the title that AoE2 doesn't suffer to the same extent.
If the trends and platform usage remains the same, AoE2 will fully overtake AoE4 in player base size when AoE4 starts averaging less than 10k players on steam. That could happen sometime towards the end of February or early March depending on how the slope flattens out
Again, to whoever created the chart below, thanks! It's a really cool data point that gets brought up alot, and now we have some more information on it
I believe this data is taking the total unique players who have played a ranked 1v1 or TG and looking at their platform. I'm not sure how de-duplication etc. was done, and I'm also not sure if this data is lagged (since it takes 30 days of inactivity to fall off the ladder), but this is the first time we have seen anything that shows the relative sizes of the player bases on each platform.
*A key point is that this is multiplayer numbers only, and doesn't appear to include campaign/AI only players, who make up the majority of the player bases for both games. But assuming that preference to play ranked isn't correlated with Xbox vs Steam use, I think the data is still quite valuable.
Side note: if you made this, please feel free to correct me! I think it was a clever way of getting at the question, and overall Kudos to you! (kind of feels like a Robo thing?)
So looking at the chart, we can see that indeed AoE4 has a much larger portion of it's player base using GamePass, which should come as no surprise given that the 3-month trial was $1 instead of $60+ to purchase the game on steam.
Using this information, we come up with a steam -> total population multiplier of:
AoE2 DE: 1.08
AoE3 DE: 1.07
AoE4: 1.54
Now we can take the latest player count from Steam Charts and use the multiplier to arrive at a much better estimate of total player base size for each game. I am using the January numbers since they won't change day to day, but it should be noted that in the first few days of February AoE4 has continued to decline at a faster rate than AoE2, and I don't think the "trend" of the decline is changing all that much.
January 2022 average player count on steam:
AoE2 DE: 15,017
AoE3 DE: 793
AoE4: 12,137
January 2022 total player count (using multiplier):
AoE2 DE: 16,218
AoE3 DE: 849
AoE4: 18,690
So, it looks like AoE4 had a larger player base across platforms in January 2022.
Now for the caveats:
This is only including AoE2:DE, and does not include AoE2 HD or UserPatch. We can run a similar estimation for AoE2:HD, which gives us:
Aoe2:HD on steam: 4,330
AoE2: HD total (using DE multiplier): 4,676
I won't try to estimate the player base size of those still playing 1v1 black forest no-cut on Voobly, but maybe someone else can chime in.
So if we consider AoE2:HD + AoE2:DE, it's fair to say that AoE2 has a larger player base than AoE4, while just DE is still slightly smaller.
AoE4 is also continuing to shed players, and one of the dangers it faces given the new GamePass data is the looming expiration of the GamePass trial. Given that the other games in the Age Franchise have GamePass numbers that are less than 10% of their total player base, I don't think it is unfair to assume that AoE4 might trend in a similar direction (even if it ends with a larger GamePass population than the other titles). Many AoE4 players will be facing the decision of whether to renew their GamePass subscription (or perhaps even buy AoE4 outright) which puts some additional pressure on the title that AoE2 doesn't suffer to the same extent.
If the trends and platform usage remains the same, AoE2 will fully overtake AoE4 in player base size when AoE4 starts averaging less than 10k players on steam. That could happen sometime towards the end of February or early March depending on how the slope flattens out
Again, to whoever created the chart below, thanks! It's a really cool data point that gets brought up alot, and now we have some more information on it