Why No Man’s Sky Player Count Is Dropping Significantly

Updated:

13 Oct 2016

Hello Games No Man’s Sky Has Dropped From 212,000 Per Hour Players To Under 1000 Players Per Hour

It’s remarkable how many No Man’s Sky players on Steam have dropped out since the release of No Man’s Sky. Between August 12th and the beginning of October, players on Steam had reduced by 94%. Despite the hype and massive revenues brought in on launch day, the game descended into a downhill battle. With more than half of the players gone, the PC game is sitting on the rocks waiting for its redemption.

No Man’s Sky relinquished its spot on Steam’s most-played game list by going from number 3 to number 132. There’s no question as to why this decrease occurred when false advertising, bugs, and technical issues contributed to the downfall of this game.

False Advertising Is Suspected In the Decline of Players

Many people preordered copies of No Man’s Sky because of the hype that it was built up on. It turned out to be hollow hype due to the fact that players felt like they weren’t getting the whole package. During previews, they were drawn in by features and graphics that weren’t delivered.

The gaming communities were blaming the creator Sean Murray for false advertising. Different styles of the game were featured in trailers that weren’t found in gameplay. Steam users complained and posted negative reviews. Screenshots emerged of differing behaviors, sizes, and combats than reality. This sparked irritation in players and they fleeted.

Bugs and Technical Issues Affect Player Count Also

It wasn’t just the factor of over promising that turned players off to No Man’s Sky. Players were also finding bugs and technical issues that they could not get around. A couple major bugs in particular entailed the inability to save until you died and corruption of game save data. These reasons alone are enough for someone to rage quit and never look back.

Other noteworthy bugs were freezes during important actions such as warping or setting waypoints. Fortunately, these issues would not be here to stay.

Since that moment of realization, the game’s team worked diligently to create patches to rectify the unfavorable state. As much as 70% of the bugs were fixed in a patch following the release according to Hello Games. The rest was to follow.

No Man’s Sky was off to a great start with players at their peak following release. Shortly after when bugs and perception changes came to light, the player count started to significant drop. The count of Steam’s daily players count reduced to nearly 94%. Hello games have been and will continue trying to improve gameplay and bring the player count back up.