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

[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.

What? No! Just look at broodwar. Without the pro scene most multiplayer games just die out in a matter of months.

[Deleted]

BW was an outlier for a myriad of reasons. It was restricted almost exclusively to Korea, it was a game without new additions, after a while without new balance patches, and a game that didn't create any meaningful recurring revenue. For those reasons, it can't really be compared to HotS or any other ftp game and has no attractive business model for any developer.

And HotS pro games have 10 or 20k viewers. If they truly are a indication for future survival, the game should be doomed. Disclaimer: I don't think it is.

[caervek]

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

Aha... Cool story bro really.

Well it makes sense as 6.5m is the last figure the HotS devs let slip.

*EDIT*

My mistake, last slip from the devs was that the playerbase had grown from 6.5m to 8m (end of March).

[Frozen Death Knight]

Well it makes sense as 6.5m is the last figure the HotS devs let slip.

*EDIT*

My mistake, last slip from the devs was that the playerbase had grown from 6.5m to 8m (end of March).

Got a source for that? Would like to read it myself.

- - - Updated - - -

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).

It was not a very funny joke, so it was dead on arrival.

That frankly really doesn't matter at all. If you are spending time playing a video game, then you by all accounts should count as an active user. If you think only the people who play ranked and unranked should count, then you are just as well ignoring the casual player base in any game, which is a significantly larger portion of any game's player base.

[RH92]

Hardly any people are playing this game serious, the current state just reflects that.

2018 gameplay changes killed this game and ever since it's implementation it has been on decline.

[NightZero88]

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 I'm misunderstanding, are you saying the players playing against bots should count or the bots themselves? I agree, PEOPLE playing against bots absolutely count but you made it seem like you thought the AI opponents should count in total players. Is that what you think?

[Frozen Death Knight]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, are you saying the players playing against bots should count or the bots themselves? I agree, PEOPLE playing against bots absolutely count but you made it seem like you thought the AI opponents should count in total players. Is that what you think?

Seemed pretty obvious that I was talking about people. Who in the right mind would ever count bots?

[NightZero88]

Seemed pretty obvious that I was talking about people. Who in the right mind would ever count bots?

Actually, below is the quote. It seems like you actually ARE talking about AI bots with the way you phrased it. If you notice most people in the thread questioned your statement.

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.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Actually, below is the quote. It seems like you actually ARE talking about AI bots with the way you phrased it. If you notice most people in the thread questioned your statement.

People say QM players, HL players, Unranked players, etc. all the time. AI players is no different to me.

[NightZero88]

People say QM players, HL players, Unranked players, etc. all the time. AI players is no different to me.

AI players to me means the bots, since they're AI. QM, HL, unranked all makes sense but not AI.

[Frozen Death Knight]

AI players to me means the bots, since they're AI. QM, HL, unranked all makes sense but not AI.

Most people say bots, not AI players. Talking about AI players in the way you are referring to in the context of HotS would mean either having AFKers in your game or playing with bot allies, which would still be referring to the Vs. AI game mode, and would require at least one actual person to play the mode (no user base metrics system ever count in-game AI bots as a part of the active user base because that would be stupid beyond belief). This entire conversation would be ridiculous if we based it on the premise that saying AI players = bots.

[NightZero88]

Most people say bots, not AI players. Talking about AI players in the way you are referring to in the context of HotS would mean either having AFKers in your game or playing with bot allies, which would still be referring to the Vs. AI game mode, and would require at least one actual person to play the mode (no user base metrics system ever count in-game AI bots as a part of the active user base because that would be stupid beyond belief). This entire conversation would be ridiculous if we based it on the premise that saying AI players = bots.

Completely agree, however, the way it was phrased sounded like that was what you were implying. If you look at the reactions you can see I wasn't the only one who thought as much. Regardless, it's a silly thing to be arguing about so lets just move on.