Starfield Tops 13 Million Players, 40 Hour Average Playtime Per Player

This figure is up from 12 million players on December 2, 10 million players on September 19 and six million players as of the morning of September 7.

[Lightning77]

A million up from the 2nd of December. Clearly has to be Christmas gifting going on. Another million less than a month is interesting to say the least.

[Cacabunga]

Reminds me of the number of miles players drove on forza and headshots in halo.,

[darthv72]

Typical sales just show units sold, it doesnt show how people are enjoying what they bought. For some/many, they buy something and never really use it. When you see things like headshots or miles driven or webs slung... it shows real engagement. Those can be interesting.

[Cacabunga]

Darth

What you are saying makes no sense.. sounds like xbox actually care about games to have fun.. they stopped sharing sales numbers at the end of 360 era when sony and nintendo annihilated them sales wise.

You really believe board meeting slides will be about number of headshots? Why so delusional?

[darthv72]

@Caca... I simply said this stuff could be interesting. If a game sells 1m units... that's about all you know of it. you don't know what percentage are actually playing it. You do when they give other stats like the stuff being done in the game. If that 1m units results in something like 400m miles driven... that tells you people ARE playing it and getting some enjoyment out of it.

the whole point of gaming is to enjoy it... how does that not make sense when they talk stats?

[Christopher]

***Typical sales just show units sold, it doesnt show how people are enjoying what they bought.***

I think achievements/trophies do that well enough. Putting an hour label on it isn't that accurate considering how long it takes certain games versus others.

[Cacabunga]

Chris

I strongly disagree.. there are games i played for almost humdred hours and still had 0% in trophies..

[Palitera]

One of my most played games has millions of players as well. It's kind of free too.
Also one of my most unsuccessful games ever lol

[Sonic1881]

I have wondered for a while how some people played Starfield for so many hours. So I checked mine, it said 1D 2H 23M ( 26,23 ) feels waaaay more than I played, So when I check my save file on the Xbox it says (18:50) and that feels way more accurate. So how could that be? I tried having the game in quick resume seems to be working in rest mode to and voila, it counts. So when someone show you their stats from the achievement menu, ask them for a pic for the save file. Surprised…

[anast]

They did say it takes a 150hrs to actually get into it.

[Seraphim]

That's what annoys me with these numbers. 13 mil with an average of 40 hours doesn't really paint any meaningful picture. How many played for hundreds or even thousands of hours and how many played for 20 or less... it's MS number shenanigans at its finest. Find a way to make the numbers look more impressive than they are...

[--Onilink--]

Its a mathematical average…. It tells exactly what an average is supposed to say…

Number of hours played / number of players

Of course there will be players with more than the average and those with less, but it will still average to same amount among the 13 million

[TiredGamer]

The median number of hours would be a more meaningful statistic. Otherwise you can have a segment of players that will completely blow the numbers out of the water.

[Terry_B]

Somehow I don't believe it.

[DarXyde]

Nah, I believe it.

It's a Bethesda game on Xbox and PC.

It just gets murky when we're talking about "players". Those aren't sales. It's sales, Game Pass, and possibly multiple accounts per single device. Death Standing also reached 16M players, but we don't know how to interpret that at all.

But even PlayStation reported sales are confusing because Portal counts as console sales too.

It's all weird.

[Cockney]

Portal doesn't count as a ps5 sale, c'mon you know this, playstation has asked that the portal be counted as a separate console, not too difficult for you to comprehend surely

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Death Stranding sold 4.1M as of Feb 2022 per Insomniac leaks.

[shinoff2183]

You got a link for that counting as a ps5 sale.

[DarXyde]

@Cockney and @shinoff2183,

Seems you're right: ( https://www.pushsquare.com/...

I never saw the follow-up articles. Only that it would be tracked as a console sale. Fair enough, point well made.

@CantThinkOfAUsername,

If true, February of last year is quite a while ago. I'm sure sales have increased since then, but definitely not +12M. plenty of borrowers and used market, I suspect. Starfield I think is different. My guess would be 2-3M sales 6-8M Game Pass, and the rest being secondary accounts on the same device.

[Crows90]

They give the game away for free through Gamepass...of course ..could you imagine the number of players who would've played spiderman 2 if it was given out for free?

Think about it. People have to pay like $10 for starfield for access for 1 month. That's nothing. That's a fast food menu item.

[Terry_B]

ah okay..that makes sense...

[outsider1624]

"They give the game away for free through Gamepass...of course ..could you imagine the number of players who would've played spiderman 2 if it was given out for free?"

Speaking of which If Sony did that, it'll be in trouble. In the leak, i saw horizon fw sales went flatline after it went on ps+. Sony isn't Microsoft that has endless money to throw around. They've got to be careful.

[thesoftware730]

And this is bad for the consumer how?

If $20 can get you a meal and a 100+ hour game, I call that a hell of a deal.

But you spin it and worry so much about these multi-million dollar Corps. pockets. I'll give you more to worry about, did you see the newest leaked Insomniac info? that Sony is pressuring their devs to cut back on budgets, and possibly fire more people? Insomniac is looking for a way to fire up to 75 people working on SM3 and Wolverine. apparently, SM 2 needed to sell over 7 million copies just to break even. Additionally, they plan to shut down another studio.

Go ahead and spin away.

[Crows90]

@thesoftware

Lets pretend fast food hasnt gone to shit and collectively gone up in price at the same time.

[attilayavuzer]

Not too surprising. The hate circlejerk for this game exists mostly in a couple online communities. Most people just play games and get on with their lives.

[ravens52]

Here we go lmao. They should put out a article everytime someone plays it. Next article Starfield now has 12million and one players.

[jambola]

"twitch streamer 452 says starfield is really great"

[CrimsonWing69]

I’d rather know how many units were sold.

[badz149]

It's not in the top 10 in any major market, that should give a good idea how it's doing

[ChasterMies]

This is Microsoft. You’ll never get a number without caveats.

[aconnellan]

Can’t have been more than Skyrim or Fallout during their respective launches, I’d say. Lots of hype, but it died off relatively quickly after people actually got their hands on it, so I’d say it wouldn’t have the same legs.

But curious, why would you rather know that?

[CrimsonWing69]

Because sales equate a game’s success. Did it sell13 mill or are a majority just trying it on Gamepass? How many of the 13 mill are consistently going back to it? How many just played for an hour and ditched it?

I was extremely hyped for this game throughout the marketing before launch. I played it for 5 hours and it is one of the most boring and disappointing games I have ever played.

That’s why I want to know. Saying how many people “played” the game vs units sold feels a little misleading.

[blacktiger]

Lies, and with M$ we don't know how they count

[ModsDoBetter]

Lies?
Source or just fanboyism?

[Chevalier]

Counterpoint where's your 'proof' blacktiger is wrong olMyerslo? If you're asking for proof surely you can explain how each person is counted right? Along with some full data with revenue and profit right?

You know having a couple data points, but, not all of if to draw conclusions is idiotic right? It would be like you the Lego company and just make a statement that 10% of people play with Lego. It's absolutely useless if you're not going to explain what properties those lego sets were from and what they cost to make so you could calculate revenue and profit.

It's like saying Lego customers have on average spent 3 hours building their lego sets. There's no context or meaning behind it.

[andy85]

Meanwhile it has 11,000 paid players on steam, less than 2011s Skyrim

[repsahj]

Lol for getting the average hours. XD

[Chevalier]

Yep. Like my analogy it would be if you asked Lego how much Lego sets they sold, the average price sold, cost per set, sales and revenue and their response was.... our customers spend and average of 3 hours building their Lego sets! Or only saying our customers spent 20 million hours building Lego sets this year. Lol. Absolutely 💯 useless numbers.

What next Hasbro saying there were 2 billion hours of playing with their toys this year?! Such stupid metrics at say a shareholders meeting would be confusing without context

[badz149]

Did you see the stunt they pulled at TGA? They have no shame

[Crows90]

They put themselves in there trying to appear relevant and exciting. They failed. I laughed through it.

[Ninver]

This means absolutely nothing. How many concurrent players are actively playing daily?

Anyone can try it and dismiss it right away. I'm sure there is a fanbase for SF but it's a single player game after all.

[bleedsoe9mm]

Awesome game can't wait for the DLC

[Crows90]

Yeah...unfortunately you gotta wait a few loading screens.

[Crows90]

How the sales going?

[Chilliersplash]

Double Spiderman 2 sales .. very interesting

[DickyD1226]

7 is half of 13? Also two platforms vs one? Stop the comparison because I bet sales are less than half of spider man sales.

[RupeeHoarder]

More than 2 platforms since it's on gamepass. I can play it through the TV app.

[Christopher]

I mean... let's be reasonable here.

1 platform vs 2
sold vs players

[Zeref]

What does it matter?

13 million people played it so it's twice as popular.

[Christopher]

*** 13 million people played it so it's twice as popular. ***

That's not a sign of popularity. I mean, do you want to go and make that same statement on The Finals hitting 10m in only 15 days?

[jznrpg]

Those aren’t sales. I’m sure the majority played it on GamePass

[Zeref]

Still more popular.

[BrainSyphoned]

Obscure coping mechanisms.

[Zeref]

40 hours average is insane, I get it. Because once I start the game up, I actually don't know when I'm stopping, I've played this game, looked at my clock and it's 12 hours later. It's not an exciting action game it has a kind of relaxing and immersive vibe to it that you don't experience in other games.

I imagine maybe that's what people that play carwash simulator and the like experience too.

[Gamingsince1981]

40 hours average is nothing lol what are you talking about. That's less than 2 days of play per person. They say it takes around 100 to get to the good part.....like game plus. All this means Is all the people playing it for free on gamepass aren't even getting far enough to get to where it's supposed to be fun.

Lots of people that hate the game on steam reviews are 100 hours plus , if you play for 40 that's gotta be even worse than the people that hate it.

[Zeref]

40 hours AVERAGE is insane. What are YOU talking about?

[BurritoWarrior]

how many years was spent in loading screens is the real question

[Crows90]

Yes...that's a statistic I want!

[attilayavuzer]

Probably like 15 minutes cause the loading screens are basically instant

[purple101]

Phill Spencer played it for 2million hours

Everyone else tried it for 5 minutes and deleted it

= average 40hrs per person.

;)

[Crows90]

Forgot to mention that Phil thought it was great!

[Chevalier]

This the Phil who had mock scores for Redfall up 10 points higher? Lol. That thought Redfall was a decent game? Their first $70 AAA game and had the audacity to have a $100 deluxe edition to? Yeah I guess Starfield is slightly better than Redfall. Lol

[shinoff2183]

For a game with so much to do. AVerage playtime of 40 hours isnt that impressive imo.

I had about 25 before I decided to just wait till some updates and stuff

[Crows90]

I did all side quests in the city and then beelined the main story. Didn't enjoy a single minute but everyone said it gets better in the main quest...then they said it gets better in the side content....and then they said I obviously loved it since I played so much...geez!

And now there's some child going around telling me I never played it...how I wish that were true.

[Chevalier]

My friend told me it wasn't even worth the download. Lol

[Christopher]

I had more fun just finding hard spaceships to disable and sell off than the story. But I had over 80 hours in it. The story and other side stuff I tried but just wasn't of interest to me.

I'm also waiting for updates. I'm hoping they make things more enjoyable to explore or at least a focus on getting to the good stuff without having to manage oxygen and speed.

[FPS_D3TH]

I played 50 hours before switching to cyberpunk when the dlc dropped. Barely made a dent in the story but the game was just boring. Nothing like Skyrim or fallout levels of exploration.

[Elda]

Still no sales update.

[PhillyDonJawn]

That's insane.

[RupeeHoarder]

40 hours..... the amount of time it takes for you to lose hope that there is anything else to do on other planets. This game is like a slot machine for reinforcement. Let me just try one more planet and maybe just maybe....

[Reaper22_]

Congrats to Bethesda and Mictosoft on this successful IP. 2024 looks to be even better.

[P_Bomb]

Still crossing my fingers for a 60fps update someday.

[Stanjara]

War... Console war never changes...

[Barlos]

Er, wow, I guess