Ubisoft's The Division Player-Base Shrinks by 81% Since Launch

So much for its claim of being a Destiny-killer

[DivoJones]

Definitely can relate.. a few months deep into Destiny I was still doing daily bounties and strikes. With Division I stopped after a month and loaned it to a friend.

[Stogz]

Dude it's so weird but it's the same for me. I really wanted this to be my go to game as I was finally getting tired of destiny, but after 3 weeks I was completely bored and have stopped playing.

[naruga]

Ubisoft when willl you learn that making a game needs artistic talent.....smthing that you never had with none of your multiple studios no matter the years you developing games .... having a bunch of tech guys handling (or even creating) a game engine doesnt make you automatically game developer

[Vegamyster]

I've taken a break from it mainly because 1.2 hasn't come out, no reason to grind when drops are going to become much more rewarding according to the patch notes + PVP/PVE changes.

[InTheZoneAC]

what is your dark zone rank? They're probably going to have higher level caps with weapons that go along with those higher weapons and of course you need dark zone funds.

[Vegamyster]

I think i'm only 45 or something, i've put most of my hours into PVE pre 1.1.

[MRMagoo123]

I said during the betas it wouldn't last and people disagreed me to death.

[-Foxtrot]

Snap man

"Hater"

"Troll"

"Negative Nancy"

Blah Blah Blah

And we were right

[Vegamyster]

@-Foxtrot

Well when you keep going to Division articles just to say how terrible it was before it came out it's not a surprise that people won't take kindly to that lol, it's not like people haven't had fun or sunk tons of hours in the game. Diablo 3 for example was horrible when it launched and the player count was not the greatest given how many people bought the game, it wasn't until after the expansion and tons of patches that it became a great game with a consistent player base.

[SonyWarrior]

i canceled my preorder after the beta because i seen just how unfun it was that quick i noticed it was just going to be a grind fest in the darkzone with people ganking...... and the darkzone was the only interesting thing of the game, i was excited for the devision before because i thought the whole game was darkzone not just a small section which was also lame

[-Foxtrot]

Oh Gee Whiz Lolly Pop Men of the Salt Caverns...I can't imagine why this has happened.

I mean it's not like anyone was trying to say on here that this was going to happen a month or so after release and say how much people wouldn't give a crap about it only to get disagreed to death.

No sir.

[700p]

Yeah it's unfortunate to say the least. Enjoyed the game but it's lack of endgame content ruined it for me. Multiplayer only type games honestly need to step it up and have more content than they are releasing. That is why lately multiplayer only games die pretty fast. Evolve,battlefront,titanfall and now this.

[Relientk77]

I stopped playing when Ratchet & Clank came out and then Uncharted 4 is on Tuesday. Other games I'd rather play.

[harv052]

Exactly! Been playing UC4 Since wednesday, got it early...it's by far one of the best game I've EVER played! No intentions of going back to the Division until they fix the damn thing....at least on PC...

[Kalebninja]

I played it for a bit over 20 hours which i thought was a fine amount of time, it's not like it's FFXIV there's nothing to do but get loot after the campaign ends

[objdadon]

I'm definitely playing less and less now. Hell the last few days I've basically logged on and immediately logged off. Although I've had my issues with destiny too, i put over 1400 hours in it before i stopped playing.

[holdmyown83]

Haha me too I logged in and was in the dark zone and remembers I had to run all the way to the exit door I logged right back off. I did this twice.

[Gwiz]

I told you man,you fell for Ubisoft's promise.I have seen this happen many times with their games.

[rezzah]

That is why I didn't buy this game.

[Lonnie18]

Yeah I started getting disinterested when team of overpowered players started making sweeps throughout the DZ daily...it was like they owned the place and I couldn't enjoy myself!

[kneon]

The rogue system was a dumb idea made all the worse because there is absolutely no balance in how the dz is implemented.

[zerocarnage]

Try and put the division down all you want but this happened to Destiny to. Fact is when the content comes in to these games the player base will be back up, guaranteed.

Yes it's sad that it's dropped I to have stopped, it from the changes they're bringing in, its sounding like I'll be making a return plus I got season pass so I have to experience it all at some point..

The player base will always drop on these games that bring easy to get to max level then gear grind to the point nothing left to do but mess about, but when dlc arrives the player base returns. When Destiny fans and other games dlc get dry and division bring 1.2 in they will all jump on to test the new phase out and see how better it is. I reckon they're going in the rite direction.

[dp277407]

I have the season pass also but this game bores me immensely and I cant see a new area and "new' weapons bringing ppl back, even season pass holders like mylsef it'll only hold my attention for a cpl days every time a new expansion drops and I really wanna be wrong.

[divinealpha]

Na your wrong about destiny even with not having massive content in the beginning the player base never dropped significantly like that , as a matter of fact its been one of the top most viewed games on twitch still

[ghostzero]

I agree it took a lot longer with destiny that's a fact and even when numbers did drop it wasn't as bad as division and was way after its first year not during it and this shortly after launching which it had a lot to do with activision being publisher, fact that people loved bungie and put a lot of faith in them, and that destiny had nowhere the problems division has bugs wise too unlike the division destiny was actually solid game wise which helped it retain its base a lot longer. Now it's issues had more to do with lack of content and a story period nowhere the amount of issues divisions has.

[hardcorehenry]

You've got lots of disagrees but I agree I don't have the seasons pass yet but this game is just waiting for a little more content. 81% doesn't even sound that bad. Most gamers don't have the patience to play anything for more than a week.

[ninsigma]

81% doesn't sound bad?? What?? A game that thrives on having a large community has lost more than 3 quarters of its player base and you don't think that's bad??

[ExtoVert]

Well lets do the math. Lets say there is a 1 million (random mumber) player install bass, multiply that by 81% you get 810,000 players that droped out. Leaving only 190,000 active players still playing, thats a significant difference.
Now i understand the number of players is greater but its to show that a 81% drop is concerning.

[hardcorehenry]

190000 active players seems like a shitton to me. what games have significantly more players than that?

[NarooN]

An 81% drop is massive. That means there's something inherently wrong with the game. In Division's case, it's that too many fell into the hype trap and realize the game is shallow and boring not long after they get it. That's terrible.

[objdadon]

Nah bruh, the player base in destiny never dropped this dramatically. Even though i enjoyed the division and will still go back from time to time, i called this in the beta. The pvp is mainly 4v1 all of the time. Not gonna keep people playing like that. While every game has bugs and glitches ive never witnessed the types of truly game breaking glitches this game has. It had potential but i think it's too late.

[Oschino1907]

I don't think anyone read the article just the headline...

From the article:
"It has to be pointed out that the numbers have been taken from Steam, and it’s possible that the player-base playing the game directly through Uplay is omitted from this comparison. "

They are only talking about STEAM, since when is Steam the place to gauge a AAA games popularity? Every BF game since BFBC2 has had a much larger and more consistent console crowd as an example (Battlefront also).

I agree it's dropping, I haven't been playing as much either because I don't dedicate myself to one game at a time and usually wait for new release, updates, events or dlc to bounce around between them.

@ExtoVert, your logic is flawed. Even by your example it would imply out of a peak daily population (not install base) of 1,000,000 you still have at least a peak of 190,000. In no way does it mean 810,000 no longer play at all, more likely just less often or for shorter durations.

Total daily/weekly account logins would be a better indicater for your example but we don't have those numbers.

[andibandit]

Even if the numbers are just from Steam, it would be fair to assume that number on uplay have experienced similar flux. I dont see why users of Steam and UPlay should be that different.

[Dirmagnos]

As @andibandit mentioned, the fact that those are only Steam numbers doesnt mean that drop is not across all platforms and launchers. Its just a part of general trend.
Since those who use Uplay(that no1 likes but Ubisoft) experience same issues as those using Steam(and considering that Steam is far more popular platform that dreaded Uplay, not to mention its being multi-gaming platform, that will result in occasion "ohh well, since i have Steam running, why not to play some Division"), there is no reason to expect any better results. And while consoles are a bit lighter on cheating, console players are also less accostumed to exploiters and cheaters, that will result in similar results. In any case, even tho it shows numbers related only to a portion of players base, it is most likely same trend everywhere.
Also there is no flaws in that logic behind those numbers. Even if every day those 190000 players are all different from previous days it still means that numbers took huge dip, since those who played yday for some reason decided not to play today. Number of accounts mean squat, only the fact that player plays(or not) on regular basis. Rest just decided that they have better uses for their time, eg game is no (longer) engaging to them, even if its for just an hour every day. And considering pricetag on the game it speaks volumes of it quality.

[Bnet343]

Destiny is still consistently one of the top games on Twitch so it's not dead at all.

[ghostzero]

Destiny and probally no other game I have ever played has had this many issues and been this broken this early on nevermind rest of the issues with game. There's a lot here to fix that new content alone won't change so I disagree with you on that look at first update with incursion and changes that only brought game down it didn't increase numbers so new content alone won't fix the game and it will take some really good new content to bring a lot of people back 81% down this early after launch is not good sign so I disagree as with both destiny and Diablo 3 it took a lot longer then this and plus at latest with Diablo it took going multiplatform which in Divison case it already is so that can't help them and with destiny it took a huge and expensive expansion which I don't see divisions getting anytime soon because game needs a lot of fixing. Plus activision/blizzard have a lot more money and resources at their disposal then Ubisoft there's no comparison I don't think Ubisoft can pull of what activision can and with a game that both is broken and needs to be fixed along with needing more content and changes on top of it that's a lot on one plate to accomplish nevermind cost to. Hey I loved this game at launch so would love Ubisoft to prove me wrong but given what I have seen from tMassive studios behind who are game and what I heard about some of these issues just can't be fixed without completely taking game offline and reworking game I have little faith it will happen.

[TeamLeaptrade]

That's a really hefty drop, especially with a game that's been so popular as of late even with the problems its faced.

[Scottyxboxoneandps4]

Dont think it claimed to be a destiny killer tho..

[divinealpha]

They did lol , he'll Ubisoft even stated themselves I quote The division will shine were destiny hasn't ,or the division will do what destiny did but better .

[objdadon]

Oh they damn sure claimed it to be a destiny killer alway from announcement to release. No doubt about that.

[Tetsujin]

I'm on the PS4, and even I'm starting to get burned out fast until something new comes out. I'm getting sick of the behavior in the Dark Zone (Especially grief players), the bugs are starting to get worse (especially with certain missions not loading), and just recently I've hit audio issues with Power Plant challenging.

The Dark Zone is a big reason why I'm not logging on as much, and it's not the idea behind it - it's the players. I get so sick of being picked on, then the players argue "it's part of the game, git gud" instead of actually trying to help each other out for potential help with the Incursions/Challenge missions. The forums are filled with people asking for either a toggle for PVP or add a PVE instance for those who don't care for PVP. I hate having to play at odd hours just to keep the trolling down to a minimum.

Edit - And just in case anyone asks I currently have the Plat for the game, so I've spent more than enough time on the game.

[Oschino1907]

I agree, pretty much my complaints at the time also (have had audio one too). They basically let cheaters/glitchers/no lifers/griefers become the 1% that holds everyone else back from getting anywhere fairly. They need a full on passive mode if they can't control the inmates.

What's more despicable is the griefers themselves. It reminds me of WarHawk and how many wouldn't complete the one assignment/challenge to rank up and would stay on low level servers (for years at times) crushing new players until they quit.

It's disgusting the mentality of some people in games whose biggest joy is stroking their own ego and ruining someone else's day. I love PvP games, and it sucks when you get smacked down but it's quite different when the pvp is optional and you choose to hunt the much weaker passive players who aren't looking for a pvp fight.

People aren't trying to bother you, you're way op and you decide to stomp them down repeatedly and not only stop their progress but knock them down even lower. That's some low ass stuff there.

They are killing it far more, Ubisoft needs to control them or let everyone else choose an option to not play/interact with them. I know Ubi will do something because this game can't survive on the 1% who abuse everything they can figure out a way to.

[sullynathan]

Game was never a Destiny killer and Ubisoft never stated it as so. It was pushed as "Destiny killer" by sites like IGN, small gaming sites and other publications because they were online focused shared world shooters. I always knew it was never gonna kill Destiny. Destiny is still making millions, selling well and has a large player base. While both games have a grind to them it also seems people think Destiny is more fun.

Not sure why the article compared it to Dark Souls III though since that has an already established following compared to The Division.

[objdadon]

Ubisoft themselves continuously took cheap shots at destiny and said they would steal destiny 's players. Don't know why everyone has amnesia now lol.

[ninsigma]

Division is fun to play at a mechanics level but certainly destiny was way more fun and an all round better game imo. Having said that, after playing both, I'm done with loot based games. I'm burned out now xD

[Xavior_Reigns]

LOL! Bound to happen with better games coming out shortly, QB, R&C, DS3, UC4, etc...

[TheSaint]

I kind of knew this game wouldn't last after the beta, I might pick it up one day but that day is many days from now.

[Maxor]

This is what happens when you make a game that caters to hackers and glitchers. There are so many glitchers and exploiters on the PS4 that not glitching makes you look like a noob.

[GameBoyColor]

This is why end game is important.

[filipakos]

At least destiny had a raid for 6 ppl and not 3.It also had a better pvp that appealed to fps fans(ffa, team deathmatch etc) while in the Division is non existent.

[OLSKOOLGAM3REGARDLES]

Is anyone really surprised?... It's been problem after problem with this game.

[Rob_Ko]

Regret so much buying this crap, could use that money to buy Overwatch or Battleborn instead. I'm pretty sure both of those games would hold my interest longer than Division.

[WellyUK]

Destiny is a better game.

[Gwiz]

It definitely is.They seem to make things better ( granted it's about time,although i'm playing since TTK).

[Pintheshadows]

I gave up when it started throwing the same dailies up over and over again.

[daBUSHwhaka]

Game needs some proper pvp.small sections of the map cornered off for sum pvp without the huge loss from a death.tdm,koth,just some good old competitive action.

[finite]

I am still playing and love it, and I am still hitting queues to enter the game as well, so to be claim its a dead game or lacking in player base makes no sense. Going by just steam stats is crazy... since there are also PS4, Xbox One ico systems as well as Uplay, these stats do not show a true retrospect for its player base.

[Brohan]

I don't believe this I myself play it every day. It's my go to game ATM. Perhaps on like PC or other community's but Xbox is strong I meet to many players at times.

[Enigma_2099]

Duplicate post.

[Enigma_2099]

This is troubling. Why I bet Ubisoft is crying right now, and using all the money they suckered out of you guys to wipe away their tears. Yup... salty dollar bills.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

The Demo was boring so I'm not surprised. Cool premise but the shooting mechanics are very average and the story is just meh

[shaenoide]

Ubisoft don't care it's not a mmo with subscription. Most of these people already paid for the game and the season pass.

[mochachino]

Let this be a valuable lesson in testing for bugs prior to launch.

[InTheZoneAC]

this game doesn't have as much mission variety as destiny, but I'm still playing daily for several hours. Once I hit 99 in dark zone hopefully a lot more missions/areas are implemented because I won't be excessively grinding for nothing as much as I did in destiny.

Then it'll be back to playing all my other backlog of games, Uncharted 4 will be out as well...

[cfc83]

I said the game would be lacking. Hence why i never bought it. Got downvoted big time. Many gamers are very forgiving though, and will be PR conned into buy these games again.

[showtimefolks]

Ubi are the king of over promising and under delivering

Sadly many of you keep falling for their traps over and over

Up next

Wildlands

But uni sure knows how to deliver on the sequel so be excited for watch dogs 2

[DillyDilly]

If The Division wants me back ? I stopped playing a few weeks into it they gotta remove friends level scaling where they make it hard teaming up with friends & stop forcing people 2 make other characters just 2 be on the same level REMOVE THAT SHIT. I wanted 2 love & play this game with friends & family but it turned out you can not even do that with limitations

[Nathan_Hale53]

Thank god I didn't buy the game. Vowed to never buy a Ubisoft game unless they fix their crap tactics and make good games.

[fllysurfer]

Guess what... this is exactly what will happen to "No Man Sky" shortly after launch.

[Koopdogg]

I'm not playing till a few more badly needed patches are dropped before I start playing again

[supes_24]

All my friends were pushing me to get this game and I was hesitant to get it and they eventually stopped bugging me, I told them it was too much like Destiny and I wasn't falling that again. Now I read this article and my suspicions have come true. Glad I didn't waste my money on this.

[Littil_Devil]

Wow...Ubisoft needs to do something about this asap :S

[DrumBeat]

It got boring. I upgraded my BoO to 100% and had no desire to finish off the LMB. Moved onto other games, and I doubt I'm going back.

[ElementX]

Glad I never jumped on the bandwagon. I didn't really even get into Destiny much. I'm not really a fan of this type of gameplay

[IWentBrokeForGaming]

Hit level 30 and don't care anymore. I don't understand how people can play to level 99 still... The SAME tunnels and crap... Over and over and over. Especially knowing people are glitching their way to better gear in half the time as you grinding. What a damn waste of time!

[FITgamer]

That's why i passed on it. My entire friends list was lit up with The Division for about 3 weeks, now i just see couple here and there.

[formanbradley]

Good luck selling DLC for this one, Ubi****

[GNious]

...how do you flag a website for potential malware-ladden ads?

[masterfox]

lol

[MagicBeanz]

Not surprised at all.

[McGamer]

This is not surprising and knew it would end up this way for 'The Division' the same way it did for 'Destiny'. It's all eye-candy with no depth and not enough character customization. The same thing is going to happen for 'No Man's Sky' as well, but of course the fan boy's doubt that as well as Division's did in the beginning.

[opinionated]

Damn that's terrible lol. That's why I hope single player never dies.

[Runechaz]

Yeah that happen when you have a good story in your game, but your end game is fun as watching the election...

[ABizzel1]

I called this back in the beta. Like I said back then, it's not a bad game, it's just not up to what the reveal made it seem like it was going to be, and Ubisoft had absolutely no response to what kind of expansion were going to be coming post launch, so that alone was a flag for further content, and on top of that none of Ubisoft games have been flawless int heir open-world single player games, so I had no faith in them launching a perfect open-world MMO shooter.

A sequel would be nice, but they have a lot of work to do to turn the Division into an amazing game, because right now it's just a decent game that had tons of potential.

[ghostzero]

Not surprised game is too broken plus most of the changes to game has ruined it even further not helped they should have focused more on fixing and less changing because game was actually fun and good at first until the ruined darkzone and crafting with their changes turning the game into nothing but one huge grind versus fun and the dark zone into nothing but a troll fest thanks to going rogue becoming low risk high reward now versus how it was originally and was always suppose to be high risk high reward to deter such actions and I mean trolling not PvP because dark zone was always intended to be a PVE area with option to PvP. Either way both endgame wise and PVE wise game was also bad I mean the PVE open world is empty and lifeless at endgame which originally you could hunt and kill named bosses but that was changed too because of one of the bosses being over farmed lol which is finny because same thing is allowed in darkzone so not like that was wrong what was wrong was the location that the named boss spawned at do they should have simply moved that boss to a different location not do away with named bosses in PVE altogether. Then I love how loot is so suppose to be important with these type of games yet the games exotics are basically all the same design and basically covered in gold trim and garbage so you grind for days or hours trying to get this gun that is suppose to be divisions exotic weapons only not to get or when you do you find out it's garbage and that your better off with other easier to get weapons in game.

Lastly you hear about incursions being the division's endgame raids and when you go sly get one its not bad enough that it's broken but even if it wasn't it's basically a one room horde mode with waves of enemies coming at you while you fight a stationary tank that can't move lol so much for raids lol crap there is one missions ATM in game that resembles a mini raid with mini bosses and one final boss at the end and shows that game has potential for great incursions but their idea so far of incursions surely ain't raids and nothing compared to what destiny has lol. Bottomline division is an RPG so it's PVE has to be strong endgame wise and right now it's a joke and surely lacking nevermind all the issues th game has with bugs or otherwise but it's huge beautiful open world is basically empty and lifeless in comparison with darkzone which they clearly focused on being more then what it turned out to be and not enough on the games core which in every MMORPG is it's PVE which while destiny isn't exactly the pinnacle when it comes to this it's PVE is still better then division both in quality and amount and that is without a story which pains me to say because given fact that division actually has a story you would think they would get rest right as well but no in destiny you true.y have a lot more to do in PVE and its surely not empty and lifeless that I will admit regardless of its faults that it does and fix a lot better then division does that's a fact.