Hello there readers of LambdaGeneration! My name is Vyacheslav ‘MrFreemanBBQ‘ Konchits. I’m Russian, and I am a new writer at LambdaGeneration. I came here from the Russian Social Network ‘VKontakte’ a.k.a. VK where I am the lead writer and founder of the Steam VK public page. I will be covering mainly Steam related news but also general gaming industry news that is related to Valve.
Anyway, today Dota 2, one of the most popular Valve games, has just set a new record for the number of concurrent players, namely — 326,072 people. This is a huge milestone for both the game and for Valve themselves! Here is a graph showing overtime playerbase statistics for both the Dota 2 beta and the previous record-holder, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Dota 2 SteamGraph Player Stats
Previously, Skyrim had 287 thousand concurrent players, immediately after its release in November of 2011. As the graph shows, this was a temporary peak which went down as more and more players finished the game. However, Dota 2 is a constantly developing multiplayer experience with very organic replay value, so a slower, more progressive escalation seems like healthy behavior for its playerbase.
And it is gathering some serious pace. During the second annual ‘The International‘ championship in the summer of 2012, Dota 2 exceeded 100 thousand concurrent players, but by the last week of December during the ‘Greeviling’ update event, this number had doubled (it had previously seen a significant peak during the Halloween ‘Diretide‘ event just a few months earlier).
Keep in mind that Dota 2 is still in a semi-closed beta, and access remains restricted. However, in recent time, Valve has been distributing massive amounts of Dota 2 beta invites – and while there’s a lot of them in the wild, it’s a far cry from the truly open free-to-play release that Dota 2 will be when it is fully launched.
Also, today Dota 2 reached 500,000 copies on Steam Community Market!
However, Valve are not trolling players by distributing these Dota 2 invitations. Some time ago Gabe Newell said that they are only giving away the exact amount of Dota 2 copies to ensure a stable network. And I’m pretty sure that you guys understand the problems Valve face – if on top of the current active playerbase, half a million new players were to join to the current Dota 2 network at the same time, they could very well explode!
And what is to say they haven’t? On a related but unfortunate note, just a few hours ago, the beta suffered a massive server outage which left the game temporarily unplayable for quite some time. This is not the first time it’s happened, and it is hard to say if it will be the last!
Source: SteamGraph.net
15 Responses to “Dota 2 beats Skyrim’s record for most concurrent players on Steam. Again.”
http://gamingbolt.com/did-valve-show-half-life-3-at-gdc
This
Dave Oshry has already confirmed that he didn’t actually see Half-Life 3 and knows nothing about it, but was merely there to meet with Valve for business talks (since the Rise of the Triad remake is set to hit Steam this summer).
But Elder Scrolls Online vs Dota 2?
Starting from May 3rd, also depends on if ESO will be on Steam.
Become one with Mother Russia, da?
Quite impressive, although I don’t see why the comparison is necessary. Skyrim would never continue to stay at the top against other multi-player titles, it’s not a multi-player game…
All hail mother russia!
Excited to see someone other than Vic writing articles! Good luck!
I’ve been playing DOTA2 a lot recently, and I have to say I am really liking it. Can’t wait till it is actually released!
Am not quite sure how single player game is compared to multiplayer game. No doubt both the games are just great, & i always end up in dilemma which one to go for when I log into Steam
But yes, make skyrim multiplayer, then the real tussle begins
Cheers.
I never realized how crazy popular Dota was!
Actually as of today, 326,072 is the new peak for Dota 2.
I made this article yesterday, so the number grew up faster than expected. Thanks for the fix!
That just shows how much its growing, damn 20k in a day…
sweet lord speak to me, speak to me, speak to me
Great first article, welcome Vyacheslav!
Thank you!