Fall of MultiVersus; Game Lost 99% of Players on Steam
MultiVersus may not have fallen to the level of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, but this F2P game may never again be able to threaten Super Smash.
Another big competitor of Super Smash Bros. is doing not so well. This week, the activity figures of MultiVersus on Steam dropped below 1,000 for the first time (via SteamDB). Thus the game has lost more than 99% of players since its release in July..
A similar trend is occurring on consoles. Admittedly, we do not even have quasi-official statistics, but True Achievements claims that from the initial number of players MultiVersus on Xboxes only about 4% of users launched the game in the past week.
Lack of content and expensive microtransactions
When MultiVersus debuted in July 2022, it seemed that the Player First Games team had done its homework. No mistakes were made like in the case of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (including the lack of dubbing at launch), and the game's monetization system seemed relatively well balanced. The game was also supported after release, adding five characters in the first season.
However, since the start of the season 2 in November, players have received only one character - Martian Marvin. This is partly a result of the interaction between characters from different brands of Warner Bros. - beloved by players, but requiring the constant recording of new dialogue lines for all fighters.
What's more, the developer has delayed the launch of the third season to give players more time to unlock content from the previous one. Instead of this week, it will launch only on March 31. Players were, to put it mildly, irritated by this decision. Especially since they are still waiting for the possible addition of a local multiplayer mode.
On top of that, there are allegations regarding microtransactions. No, MultiVersus does not give an advantage for money, but many skins can only be bought with premium currency, and their price can reach $15.. Indeed, such an amount is equivalent to 1.5 thousand Gleamium, for which we will purchase, among other things, a golden Superman and Velma in a Hawaiian outfit.
Not enough Super Smash Bros.?
It should also be mentioned that MultiVersus is not a carbon copy of Super Smash Bros.. Player First Games' work is based on similar premise (after all, it's the same genre), but there are quite a few differences as well.
Some are obvious, such as the greater emphasis on team battles, but there are significant changes in game presentation and gameplay mechanics (for example, characters "float" more in the air, and the power of attacks is less noticeable than in SSB). As a result some fans of Nintendo's crossover game quickly bounced from MultiVersus.
In fairness, we should add that the title still performs much better than another would-be competitor to the platform fighting game series from Nintendo. NASB was struggling to attract even hundreds of players at a time after just four months (via SteamDB). Nowadays, it's practically impossible for the fighting game with Spongebob and Co. to be launched at the same time by 50 Steam users.
Nevertheless, it's still a huge drop for the game, which also had a much better start than NASB. The title loses even to the much older and also free-to-play Brawlhalla. The work of Blue Mammoth Games has never attracted such crowds as MultiVersus (well-known brands do their thing), but even after more than 5 years, every day the game is played by as many as a dozen thousand or so Steam users at once (via SteamDB).
Perhaps Player First Games will still manage to turn things around in the third season. Otherwise, we will have further proof that great licenses alone are not enough to match the phenomenon of Super Smash Bros.
