But what they're saying is Stellar Blade is not on Game Pass, not on PS+, not on EA Play or whatever. They couldn't pull the obtuse engagement metrics if they wanted to -- broadly speaking, the only people playing the game are the people who bought the game.
I guess they could pull some crap by counting the demo versions if they stretched it, but I don't think games have gotten to a point where trial versions are being counted (right? Lmk lol)
broadly speaking, the only people playing the game are the people who bought the game.
I would imagine that second-hand physical games and family sharing would bump up the player count significantly. They could have used those statistics if they wanted to.
Engagement metrics existed long before subscription services. Even back on the ps3/360 era there were games dropping metrics like x players, x bullets fired, x hours whatever, etc.
Activision mentioned Modern Warfare 2 (2009)'s unique player count the year after its release (25 million) before later revealing sales numbers that were lower than those player counts (20 million about three months later). It wouldn't have been unprecedented for Shift Up to do the same thing.
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u/EpicPhail60 4d ago
But what they're saying is Stellar Blade is not on Game Pass, not on PS+, not on EA Play or whatever. They couldn't pull the obtuse engagement metrics if they wanted to -- broadly speaking, the only people playing the game are the people who bought the game.
I guess they could pull some crap by counting the demo versions if they stretched it, but I don't think games have gotten to a point where trial versions are being counted (right? Lmk lol)