Splitgate Devs Say Steam Charts Are Irrelevant After a Failed Relaunch

With game studios frequently resorting to double-talk and touting player counts rather than actual sales to proclaim, "Look how well our game is doing," and gaming journalists often handing out scores that make you wonder, "Did we even play the same game?", it has become increasingly common over the past few years to turn to SteamDB to judge how popular a given title really is among everyday gamers.

As imperfect and flawed as this approach may be, checking a title's Steam player numbers as a way to estimate its merit has nonetheless become widely adopted by players around the world – partly because Steam is the only platform where concurrent player counts are publicly visible, but mostly because, in many cases, it is the only way to see people's genuine reactions, untainted by misleading announcements and absurd "critic" scores.

And naturally, it's unsurprising that some game companies aren't exactly thrilled with the service, especially when low concurrent Steam player numbers make them and their projects look bad. One such company is 1047 Games, which recently tried to downplay the relevance of Steam charts – prompting mixed reactions from the audience.

For context, back in mid-December, 1047 relaunched its multiplayer FPS Splitgate 2, renamed Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, to little fanfare, peaking at fewer than 2,500 concurrent Steam players at release.

The low numbers quickly drew attention, discouraging the gaming community from giving Arena Reloaded a chance and further shrinking the playerbase – since a multiplayer title with only a few thousand active players is no bueno – eventually snowballing to under 1,000 concurrent players by Christmas.

In response to people mocking the low SteamDB numbers, the studio claimed that "Steam Charts don't measure fun," reminding that "they show one number, on one platform, at one given moment" – as if that weren't common knowledge.

"They don't show the full picture or what it feels like to actually play, and they definitely don't capture the community that's actively helping shape what Arena Reloaded is becoming (including upcoming content like Arena Royale)," 1047 commented, becoming – credit where it's due – one of the few game studios to actually acknowledge that Steam player charts have become a metric many now pay the most attention to.

Here's their full statement:

As noble as 1047's acknowledgment of SteamDB may have been, it didn't spare the studio from a textbook Streisand Effect, with many in the comments making fun of the developer for "massive cope" and criticizing it for trying to "remind" everyone of what was already known – that Steam charts only provide an approximate look at community interest, nothing more.

That said, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded did see its Steam numbers rise after the Twitter post was published, climbing back above the 1,000 concurrent player mark for the first time since December 25, so it wasn't all bad.

So, what do you think of 1047's response? Was it necessary, or would the studio have been better off leaving the topic alone? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!

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