Number of Players Isn't Everything. Manor Lords Earned $60 Million in Steam Early Access
The number of players in a game isn't everything. Manor Lords is just one example of a game that is an unqualified success for the publisher despite its „decline” after its release.
Publicly available statistics on the number of players can provide valuable information. Nevertheless, there are voices criticizing the evaluation of game success based solely on "peaks" on Steam. The crowning example is supposed to be the $60 million that Manor Lords earned despite the decline in the number of players on Valve's platform.
Success and "decline" of Manor Lords
Manor Lords was released at the end of April as one of the big hits of 2024, which would be quite an achievement for any game, let alone a title developed mostly by one person. However, three months after the phenomenal release (preceded by the game being added to the wish lists of over 3 million Steam users), the number of people simultaneously playing the game has noticeably decreased.
At the moment, Manor Lords has a daily peak of around 5-7 thousand players. It's still a significant number for a single title in early access, but it's a substantial decrease with over 173,000 on the day of the release. Hence, for instance, the criticism of ML from the developer of The Long Dark (which was quickly withdrawn).
CCU isn't everything
Tim Bender, the CEO of Hooded Horse, the game publisher, has previously emphasized that judging success only through the prism of the number of players in the game is a mistake. Especially in the case of titles that aren't multiplayer games-as-a-service, whose survival often depends on maintaining "growth." The American also assured that he was very satisfied with the results of Manor Lords.
Clearly, the publisher actually has reasons to be satisfied. Bender was among those contacted by a16z games as part of preparing an article on the limitations of measuring game success by "concurrent users" (CCU). This was created in response to discussions (and comments from devs) about this trend.
The text provides an example of theHunter: Call of the Wild from 2017, which decidedly doesn't break popularity records. Historically, the game's highest CCU of 24,000 concurrent users isn't bad, but not outstanding either, and the daily peak quite often falls below 7,000 or even 5,000 (via SteamDB). Despite this, the hunting game has made 100 million dollars for the publisher since its premiere in 2017.
a51z games also points out that CCU is particularly unreliable for premium games, i.e. requiring purchase and not relying on microtransactions. As it was put, no serious person would try to point to the drop in Baldur's Gate 3's daily peak as evidence that the game of the Larian studio has "lost players." Just as no one will mention that the further from the premiere, the lower the viewership of a blockbuster movie like Oppenheimer - in both cases the producers achieved undeniable success.
Recipients, not statistics
In the case of games-as-a-service, Areeb Pirani, former director of brand strategy for League of Legends, suggests that while the number of players is important for such titles, especially those focused on PvP gameplay, emphasizing a drop in daily CCU after the peak is overrated. This emphasis is often deliberate by people who want to show, at all costs, that a given game is "dying."
The raw player count—especially lifetime installs, and peak CCU on Steam at launch are overrated, often intentionally. Decay from peak is overrated and oft cited, especially by players looking to prove how the game is dying.
Both Pirani and Kristoffer Touborg (Vice CEO for Avalanche Studios Group's product) suggest that instead of increasing the number of players, developers should focus on the intended audience for the game.
Success of Manor Lords despite CCU declines
This all fits into what Bender said in the context of his games, not only Manor Lords. The CEO of Hooded Horse indicated his reluctance to take the company public, as it would mean the need to appeal to investors who would expect profit and "infinite growth."
The American also assured that the company is very satisfied with the result of Manor Lords. Not without reason, because in a statement for a16z games, he revealed that the Polish strategy earned over $60 million, and by the end of June over 250,000 copies of the game were sold.
Bender argued that CCU is highly imprecise as the number of people in the game can be affected by numerous factors. These could be veterans playing their favorite game for hundreds of hours, as well as a steady influx of new players who spend less time in the game. In the case of premium games, the second option is more beneficial for the developer.
CCU Traps
The head of Hooded Horse personally values other data more, primarily the median playtime (which he mentioned in response to criticism from Raphael van Lierop), but also reviews. Because these "statistics" show whether developers are actually doing a good job and whether their efforts satisfy players.
In his opinion, the common view of CCU leads to small teams starting to treat their titles as games-of-service, for example by preparing post-launch content for a game in Steam Early Access instead of focusing on making the best first impression after entering Early Access or improving balance game (which was also advocated by the publisher of Caves of Qud).
If you try to apply the live service model to a smaller team doing Early Access, it'll steer you wrong in a couple ways. One way is by telling you that you should save content for post-release updates. And that would be an extremely big mistake. With a premium game, you don't care that much about saving content [to be released after launch].
Maybe you need two or three months of just balancing and bugfixes. It's not just about having more stuff in the game—that doesn't always make a better final product. Sometimes it's about what you remove, what you balance, and what you polish.
It's also worth adding that currently, Manor Lords is one of the most frequently purchased games on Steam. The title can be purchased for $29.99 as part of a sale, which will last until August 6th.
