'Dragon Ball FighterZ' News: Player Count Down 80 Percent After First Two Weeks
When Arc System Works released "Dragon Ball FighterZ" on Steam, it managed to break the record for most active players for a fighting game. On its launch day, it managed to peak at over 44,000 concurrent players, which is more than double the previous record holder, "Tekken 7," which peaked at about 18,000. But it seems player retention is not one of the game's strong points as, just a little over two weeks after launch, player count is now down by 80 percent.
A report by GitHyp shows that the newest anime fighter to hit the market just barely broke past the 9,000 point within this past weekend, showing a massive drop-off post-launch on the platform. "Tekken 7" took about two months before it lost the same percentage of players.
What could have caused the massive drop-off? "Dragon Ball FighterZ" is not a bad game by any means, and it received a lot of positive reception at launch. It was also the second best-selling game on the PlayStation 4 during the month of January, despite the fact that it came out during the last week of the month.
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The most common theory on the matter is the simple fact that fighting games are a very niche genre, while the "Dragon Ball" franchise is insanely popular. A lot of people probably bought "Dragon Ball FighterZ" not as a fighting game but as a "Dragon Ball" game. Odds are they played through the story mode and, once they were done with that, just never touched the game again because fighting games just really are not their thing. It seems to be the most plausible answer to explain the massive shift in numbers.
Regardless of its lower player count, the game is still bringing in thousands of players on average, and the developers have already confirmed a good number of downloadable content that is sure to bring people back if only for a while. "Dragon Ball FighterZ" will also be present at this year's Evolution Championship Series which, if it goes well, should help maintain its more competitive audience.
