First 3 months of ASA vs YTD ASE

Not sure when I started playing Ark but I remember the Doedicurus being introduced which stopped stone being the currency so, it's been a while. Flirted with PvP but mostly PvE. I've paid for a Nitrado server, played solo but mostly used Official Servers. My take on ASA is that it is a welcome update to Ark and I'm enjoying the new mechanics. I thought I'd have a look at the Steam Chart to get an idea of how successful ASA has been and, Although it doesn't show console or Windows PC figures, it's not looking great. It's quite normal to see a boom of players at the beginning and a decline to steady volume of players. I've seen this with each new map where there is a waiting list to get on the server which eventually becomes a non issue with a peak of 40 or 50 players during events. This time I feel like the player count on my server dropped off faster than I expected which is why I looked at the chart. It's interesting to see that ASE picked up a bit when ASA was about to go live. Maybe players were comparing the experience? The rate of decline for ASE increased after ASA went live which is what one would expect and can be seen with the second peak of users in ASA. However, the player count for ASA dropped to the same as ASE and recently both appear to have dropped off a cliff. Why?

Maybe there are comparisons to draw with Kerbal Space Program and Its update. KSP was at a point of maturity and stability that when the, absolutely not fit for the market KSP2 arrived, the player base were expecting an improvement in the base game performance at the least. The result was single figure concurrent user charts. Same could be said for ASA. The meta of breeding to trade in ASE had peaked admittedly but, where as with a new map you could eventually merge your resources (once you could move between servers), this is not an option with ASA. We are starting with nothing again and many players don't like this. I could argue that although The Island is the OG map where everything began, it's not great for the meta that players are/were used to. I regularly see players popping on our server asking to buy high spec tames that don't exist yet so maybe that demographic of player is turned off and scratching their itch with another game.

Or maybe the decline is a response to performance problems that have persisted since ASE started. I personally find it hard to understand why the chat system hasn't improved and the server lag is as bad as it is. Meshing still being abused and causing the loss of tames in ASA makes me feel like UX team were not listened to in initial development. I'm sure I'm not the only returning player that is looking at what is to come and doesn't fancy it.

And what about new players? They don't stand a chance. The new user experience has always been sink or survive but, Again this points to The Island being a poor map for ASA, as 70+ players swarm the map to stake their spot with some going full industrial meta with massive bases, there is nowhere for a newbie to get started. Experienced players will head off in to the harder parts of the map with more space of course but, if you've never played the game, you would be inclined to take root ASAP and build up your skills and tames. 

So finally I think that Wildcard did not have a clear enough idea for what or rather who it was for. It has disappointed in most areas so this must be the reason for the quick decline but, It's not over yet. WC can still improve things with optimization and a sound strategy. Adding The Centre makes sense as it is a larger map with a higher difficulty and unique tames. If Scorched earth was the next map, it would still be too small to accommodate the potential player base and lead to more of the same frustrations. 

TLDR: ASA and ASE are experiencing a decline in players. Why? What have DE got wrong and how can they fix it?

Unfortunately it seems PC got the bad end of the deal. It's not optimized very well, and the server issues just add to it. 

I would recommend ase for PC users right now. Especially new players. Are there still servers available? Private/ unofficial? 

16 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

Please note as well. These numbers are only for Steam.

There are more console players who purchased Ark than PC (Steam and Epic combined). We don't have any visibility into those statistics. Would be nice to know.

Interesting point. Do you mean ASE or ASA or both? Source?

12 hours ago, ZombiejesusX said:

Unfortunately it seems PC got the bad end of the deal. It's not optimized very well, and the server issues just add to it. 

I would recommend ase for PC users right now. Especially new players. Are there still servers available? Private/ unofficial? 

I can see your point but, it looks like pc users are choosing something other than ASA or ASE at the moment.

I imagine asa is less popular for several reasons. Namely, it is just the island. And no real new content. It is the same thing people were doing prior, just with fewer maps. Remaster are something of a novelty without new vcontent loops. Also it is difficult to run.

7 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

Interesting point. Do you mean ASE or ASA or both? Source?

In the past there were a few initiatives that tracked console numbers, for PS4 the trends where in general much like the Steam trends for ARK. Unfortunatly the one I used stopped a few years ago.
What I do see lately is the behaviour on the private cluster I play on since last year: The hype for ASA and crossplay was massive but the activity on the discord shows people getting bored with "Again the Island". Since their bases on ASE have decayed they just drop out. Activity for the PS ASE cluster is also declining
A few numbers: ASA Servers got 100 slots when consoles got access but are down to 50 now. ASE varries per map but are cut to max 20 since there's hardly anyone playing anymore.