I note that there have been discussions about player numbers recently. In order to help inform these, I thought that it might be helpful to collect some in-game data.
My first foray into this is as follows:-
Hall of Fame: Current total = 33,954,723
Danger Signs: Most popular = Runway @ 18,185,760
I chose Danger signs as the starting point, because I have assumed that these are the easiest to try out, and are fun to do in general.
I have all of the total players for all 20 Signs on the main map, so can list these if wanted. I am also happy to collect the totals for all PR stunts and Rivals.
This data only shows accumulated player numbers, not current usage, so is lacking to a certain extent.
All those stats are plays only and not current players, steam is the only way to get a hint about current players and as it seems it getting more and more players on steam not less. Since microsoft only care about plays and not players we will never know how many is really playing. 30million plays don’t really mean anything since its a gamepass game and gamepass have around 30mil? subs
I use achievement completion to really get a sense of how many people are actually playing the game and progressing, and - while some numbers have gone up since the start, many of the second and third tier achievements still remain very low in completion numbers.
Looking at XBox numbers this morning, there are only about 4 or 5 achievements et al that have over 50% completion. Most are hovering around 30-40% and some of the more rare achievements are still under 20% or less. (Steam numbers will differ).
When you have 33m plays, but no one is actually playing the game - it would seem most people just log in, grab whatever car they have and goof off doing whatever is in front of them - but not generally advancing the story and playing the wider game. (and that is fine)
The question was “engagement” I don’t think just logging in, and ramming around the map is engagement with the total game necessarily - and so I would agree with the idea that the number of “players” is a cherry picked number that doesn’t mean much.