Worried About Numbers

I stared at the flashing cursor for quite a while, hoping the rhythmic flashing would magically make the words appear.  Eventually they did, but no magic was involved, just effort.

I've not had much to write about lately, hence this blog has been very quiet.  I'd assumed nobody was reading it apart from myself, but low and behold some people do, so here we are again.

What I would like to write about is the current alliance we have found ourselves in while waiting for FozzieSov to appear and then settle down.  Violent Declaration is that alliance and unfortunately such a topic is off limits at the moment as I'd like them to improve across the board, so we are trying to lead by example, and I prefer not to shit in my own nest.

The new ship skins have been released, which are pretty cool, I look forward to more skins.

The server numbers are well down, as of right now, 5:45pm, Tranquility has 16,513 players and DUST514 only has 972.

The average number of players online this year, from January until May the 19th is 29,000.

 

The previous year, 2014, had an average of 41,000.

2013 had an average of 48,000.

You can see the trend.

Admittedly we now have potential alternatives to Eve Online in the form of Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous.  They are quite different games but if you lump them all together in the "Space MMO" genre they could, and probably have, grabbed some of the player base away from Eve Online.

CCP are trying to fight back by increasing the tempo of expansion/update releases, and come mid year 2015 the changes to null security space sovereignty may make it less of a grind, which could entice some old players back to the game.

Will it entice new players though?