According to superdata... Heroes Of The Storm got 6.5MLN playerbase.

[DesoPL]

https://www.superdataresearch.com/do...g-player-base/

Aha... Cool story bro really.

[Deleted]

AI players count and all the hidden village gamers from asia!

[Deleted]

For games where the publisher doesn't divulge official numbers, Superdata (sic) is in the business of guessing wildly. I think it was a Turbine dev, who years ago said their numbers were off.

[gushDH]

Just check the numbers on twitch and you will know how off that number is.

[Tenjen]

Just check the numbers on twitch and you will know how off that number is.

By comparing it to one that is even less dependable?

[Deleted]

By comparing it to one that is even less dependable?

Well there is hotslogs or HGC as well. Look how many teams exist, how many people record replays and what data results out of that. Look at the forums / websites and just add your personal experience with this. It will probably a lot more variable and reliable than superdata.

[Adramelch]

Well there is hotslogs or HGC as well. Look how many teams exist, how many people record replays and what data results out of that. Look at the forums / websites and just add your personal experience with this. It will probably a lot more variable and reliable than superdata.

I mean, I don't think HotS has a playerbase 60% that of DotA 2 (seems too high for me), but there's the argument that a rather big part of the playerbase only plays vs AI and those don't upload replays to hotslogs (and even the uploader doesn't upload replays vs AI), neither do they follow HGC. So it could be that the playerbase is that big, but the "relevant" playerbase (for us that is, the playerbase that we get to interact with and play with/against) is much smaller.

[Deleted]

I mean, I don't think HotS has a playerbase 60% that of DotA 2 (seems too high for me), but there's the argument that a rather big part of the playerbase only plays vs AI and those don't upload replays to hotslogs (and even the uploader doesn't upload replays vs AI), neither do they follow HGC. So it could be that the playerbase is that big, but the "relevant" playerbase (for us that is, the playerbase that we get to interact with and play with/against) is much smaller.

I agree the "relevant" matters in hots. And I would argue currently not even QM matters.

[Veldoranz]

HotS might have 1 million active users. I doubt it though...

[Frozen Death Knight]

AI players count and all the hidden village gamers from asia!

How do AI players not count? Just because you are playing against bots does not change that they are in fact playing the game, which is the point of measuring active users.

Anyway, as for you OP, 6,5 million users on a global scale for a F2P game is not particularly strange. That would mean that each major region (Asia, NA, and EU) has an average active player base of around 2 million, where one may be as a large as 3 million or as low as 1 million. The numbers are enough to sustain each region with players in all of the current game modes available. Bear in mind that these are not amazing numbers for a F2P game and should be considered as good, healthy numbers. To put things into perspective, Hearthstone last year reported having reached 70 million registered users and broke active users record for the game when the Ungoro expansion released, which could be speculated to be at the very least above 10 million globally or even in the 10s of millions.

As with all estimates, the numbers aren't giving the entire picture. Still, having roughly 6 million users globally is not out of this world crazy estimates for this type of game made by such a high profile studio.

[Currently Retired]

Until HotS makes Ranked make you want to play it more and not the opposite, I doubt that many people will keep playing it.

[Justpassing]

It's not an MMO.

[NightZero88]

How do AI players not count? Just because you are playing against bots does not change that they are in fact playing the game, which is the point of measuring active users.

I pray to all that is holy that this is a joke...

[Frozen Death Knight]

I pray to all that is holy that this is a joke...

Give an actual good reason why playing AI games with bots should not count instead of saying nothing constructive. It is a game mode whether you like it or not and if people are playing it over something like QM then that is still time spent on the game other than something else.

[Archpriest]

Give an actual good reason why playing AI games with bots should not count instead of saying nothing constructive. It is a game mode whether you like it or not and if people are playing it over something like QM then that is still time spent on the game other than something else.

Maybe the original poster meant "computer controlled players should count" as a joke? I agree that VS AI should count!

[EyelessCrow]

I pray to all that is holy that this is a joke...

I don't think they are saying bots should be counted as players. but players playing against bots?

[Deleted]

How do AI players not count? Just because you are playing against bots does not change that they are in fact playing the game, which is the point of measuring active users.

Hey don't transform "AI players" to "playing against bots", you ruin my joke. (and on a serious note I indeed would not count people who play vs AI nor those who play QM since there are no information that are useful concerning them - can't speak about MMR, balancing, design... Like FIFA don't care about some boys kicking balls against a wall when they take data).

[Nikkaszal]

Hey don't transform "AI players" to "playing against bots", you ruin my joke. (and on a serious note I indeed would not count people who play vs AI nor those who play QM since there are no information that are useful concerning them - can't speak about MMR, balancing, design... Like FIFA don't care about some boys kicking balls against a wall when they take data).

They're still players.

All MOBAs have bot games and all MOBAs have people who play that mode exclusively and all of these players are also included in playerbase counts, whether you like it or not.

It's not for you to say which people matter and which don't.

[Deleted]

They're still players.

All MOBAs have bot games and all MOBAs have people who play that mode exclusively and all of these players are also included in playerbase counts, whether you like it or not.

It's not for you to say which people matter and which don't.

How do they matter though? VS AI players don't complain to fight vs 4 supports, they don't complain about anything. You can develop the game in whatever way you want it won't affect them. Devs focus mainly on hgc/hero league players because that's where their actions and changes are received and have impact. They could nerf chen to do half dmg and hp - vs AI player's would not mind because they win either way.

Same with QM players - their problems are widely different from competitive players. They once hated nova, valeera, tracer and so on just for QM being so random and focusing on solo plays. But these heroes are not that good/even close as good in competitive plays. They are countered mostly alone by the concept of drafting. So what can blizzard do for those players when they complain? What they currently do is the most, the whole "feels frustrating to play against" is the maximum possible to cover those people. For most other things and problems it's just "you don't play the game the way we design it".

If QM was the way the game is designed around and developed around it would also be the competetive/esports/progamer mode. But it isn't. Even hero league suffers from deficits like missing swap hero option, but it will come as they said. The current MMR/HL debate shows exactly that - many progamers don't even see hero league as "relevant". Just to point out, that my horse isn't even the highest

And btw. it's the same with most games - many modes like campaign or solo content is never touched again while competitive modes get ongoing patches. Hell, you just need to look at WoW to understand the point I try to make.

[Deleted]

That's completely irrelevant for the point of the discussion. The number of users - and in the end the number of people spending money - matters, not if they play well against each other, badly against each other, against bots or if they idle in the pretty skirts window.