War Thunder is not dying. However, according to the steam charts, War Thunder is not growing. Player counts have been relatively stagnant since mid 2023.
What could Gaijin do to bring new players to War Thunder?
Is War Thunder becoming stale?
Warthunder has been stale for a decade, but they get plenty of new players in, problem is that they’re losers.
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Nope, there are more players now than years back when it used to be around 20k to 50k and this is just through steam alone and not counting other sources.
Currently there are close to 200k players online rn, i see it over 250k players online before some days ago.
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New content always brings in older players and newer players.
Also Steam is only 50% of your players btw
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One thing to keep in mind, many of us dont use WT through steam as well. Those of us who have been around for a while use the independant launcher (it wasnt even on steam back then). Steam numbers arent the end all be all of player counts
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As my last post seems to have been flagged for being critical and what I would consider honest.
Everything eventually gets stale and boring in the realms of computer gaming, anybody remember World of Warcraft ?
It was huge and it may still be popular but nowhere near its heyday, everybody wanted to play it.
When it started it was new, fresh, brought the genre of fantasy RPG onto the stage and cornered the market.
When there is no story, engagement or goals that are achievable and worth something, grinding the same thing over and over again becomes repetitive and mind numbingly boring, this is Warthunder.
There is so much scope to make it engaging, interesting and worthwhile but it never happens, as a player there is so much effort, time and for some money invested for not very much entertainment and rewards.
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“Stale”, just as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Very subjective . . as a long time player(10+ years now) I have always managed to find something that I enjoy doing, or I wouldn’t be here. The game has changed a great deal in that time, from 5 nations and 5 tiers(I started 1 or 2 Updates after the change from 20 tiers to 5) and only planes. There were jets, but mainly just some Korean War & early 'Nam era as I recall, but still jets. All that to what we have now. I had decided to become a “collector” early on, and acquire all the planes in the game. Which I did manage 5 or 6 times(tech tree, not all premiums) thru regular play/grinding and maintaining premium time on my account. I even managed to get all the tanks in there once or twice, but after the US or maybe Britain was added . . . I have not been able to keep up nearly as well . . . just too much stuff. . . lol. And they keep adding more!! . . like every update . . crazy.
At any rate, tank CBT was a blast, and naval CBT was great fun too. I still can’t fly helis worth a hoot, but that’s ok . . . who has the time??
That being said, there is always something new coming into War Thunder, the Dev team is very good about that. Hard for me to consider it growing “stale” under these conditions.
Now, being as there is so much content(I currently have 1,958 vehicles . . I cannot play them all) it may be difficult to take a fair sampling of everything.
I always advise newer players to find what they really like/enjoy playing and do that. But never be afraid to try something new . . mode, vehicle type, single player(yes there is PvE here!) and that is mainly to avoid this stale thing you mention.
But everyone is different and likes different things. Playing the same stuff over & over can become “stale” and monotonous . . so. maybe mix it up some.
The Online player & battle count remains pretty constant and almost predictable.
The game also blew up a great deal after/during the pandemic of 2020. Before that, at the slowest time of day, the “prime time” in North America, player count was around 20k - 24k and even dipping to like 18k during some week days. Now, it is rare for online player count to drop much below 100k at that time of day, some but not a lot. Easily 3x - 4x higher than before. And Gaijin has been marketing this new modern era stuff for several years now and is drawing in a lot of new players, albeit mostly much younger than what we had in the past, but still . . . “new blood”.
Maybe take a breather, and check things out after we finally get this new Update and the addition of Ray Tracing . . . chances seem pretty good, game is gonna change a good deal . . … . yet again.
I hope you find what it is that has appealed to you in the past again . .
Good Luck
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More concurrent players than before on average these days, it has definitely grown, as have the maps been proportionately reduced in size and brain capacity required to use them for all players including experienced ones.
What is an SBMM? What does it do?
These questions and more tonight at 8!
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The game barely grew at all though for the better part of a decade until covid.
2023/24 was the year they got things right, economy, progression and QoL changes, etc. Not all was bad.
I hope 2025 roadmap brings new things like proper maps, new game modes and mechanics to keep the game fresh.
The only bad decisions so far were the shrinking of maps, and the awful map rotation for top tier (reserve tier maps at 12.0, seriously?)
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I think when talking about player counts, it’s always important to acknowledge the once in a lifetime event that Covid was. Pretty much every game saw a massive boost in player count during that period, as you’d expect when so much of the world was stuck at home.
But for most games, after lockdowns ended, their player counts unsurprisingly dropped. Warthunder however was actually able to maintain those sort of numbers ever since.
It’d be wrong to call it ‘stagnation’. Being able to retain and maintain those lockdown player counts is something not many other games have been able to achieve.
I still remember the days when we celebrated hitting 50k… 75k… 100k etc players online. Now we are routinely pushing 150-200k every time I log on. Even in the dead of night on a weekday I see 30-70k. WT is doing just fine.
imo, the issue is lack of attention for the gamemodes. new vehicles, weapons, graphical settings, etc etc are great, but the context they are used within never changes. they need to add new gamemodes and overhaul existing ones to better retain the playerbase. I know i get bored after a few matches of naval or ground because there just isnt any variety. Even in air where maps are less impactful, its still the same matches everytime with no variation.
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I agree, what frustrates me most with Warthunder is that it has an incredible amount of gameplay potential, but Gaijin has never capitalized on it. For air specifically, mixed ARB EC (planes and helis) would be incredible given the amount of vehicles ingame, and would give attackers, bombers, and helis a place they can be useful in ARB instead of being forced into the CAS role in GRB.
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Yeah, that is definetly a huge part of it. My main gamemode is Air Sim and can enjoy the “CAS” gameplay in that, but its outdated and serverly lacking. They havent even updated what AI aircraft you face. You are still shooting down F-86s with the Gripen and other top tier aircraft, its wierd.
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Scroll down more. I said it’s stagnated since mid 2023. You just copied 2024 with no context from beforehand.
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when a game gets this big theres like no more players to gain for the most part. also if gaijin is gonna ban thousands of people for teamkilling instead of doing the smarter thing of turning friendly fire off they are going to stunt their growth and revenue
Thank you very much for the wishes to find it interesting and for the excellent post explaining how you find the game and what interests and makes it engaging for yourself. It is good to see different perspectives, thoughts and views.
I have to admit I struggle to think about what first appealed to me about the game, maybe I was bored with other games and the relentless advertising finally hooked me.
I have a deep interest in things up to the end of WW2 and a few years after, I expect I will never play cold war or modern stuff. Unfortunately that means I am classed as a seal clubber but I am not good enough for that !
Well best wishes to you in life and the game to achieve your goals and interests.
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One problem is the game simply isn’t friendly for new players. I’ve had tons of friends try the game out, at least a dozen, not a single one of them decided to stay. Despite us having similar interests in history and armoured vehicles, and sharing the same taste in games.
1.0 to 2.7 is fairly balanced with a couple of outliers that need BR increases. 3.0 to 3.7 is fairly balanced. The issue is 2.0 to 2.7 uptiers. 2.0 to 3.0, 2.3 to 3.3, and 2.7 to 3.7 can feel very unfair.
The other issue is the economy. Some people want to play modern vehicles, but it can take dozens, sometimes hundreds, of hours to get there without premium. Then there’s things like modification RP costs giving people the same feeling as stock vehicles in WoT, crew skills and ace crews being pay-to-win or heavily benefitting veteran players, etc.
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Yeah, I agree on the era thing, I too mainly play at 4.7 - 5.3 in Air AB, I like the planes, the competition is still very good, newer players have progressed a decent amount and aren’t really “seals” anymore at that point. Mostly fun games, exciting and close regularly enough so as not to get too "stale . . .lol. I play a little higher BR in AB tanks, but it is basically the same “era”. Naval I play RB and usually very close to the top. Naval has a lower threshold I guess, but the era at top tier there is basically the same as what I play in tanks & planes. And the differences between RB & AB in naval are slight, especially compared to planes & tanks.
I started playing when it was all planes. As a kid I thought the P-51 Mustang was the coolest fighter and when I saw they had them here . . I was hooked . . .lol. My first premium purchase was . . a P-51.
But I am much more a gamer tham military enthusiast, I just enjoy shooting stuff, the strategery/tactics. It’s a nice blend of using your brain, reflexes, eye hand coordination & luck . . not too much or too little of any of those. Almost a Missile Command/Space Invaders shooting game(showing my age, and yes I stood in line to play Pong too), but with MUCH better graphics and way cooler layouts . . . lol(and I don’t have to feed it quarters to play, even tho I do & have supported this game financially over the years).
I had been playing another “Guild based” online game for 7 years or so and it was getting stale, maining due to the use of bots and scripting to gather resources, And that game eventually died because of that and inaction by the game itself.
I just happened to see one of Gaijin’s old 8-bit banner ads, I think it showed a Duck in your sights and some pew pew pew and I thought I’d go check it out.
I saw a P-51, downloaded the F2P game and have been here ever since.
I have faith you’ll find your own way . . we always do it seems . . lol. I have noticed that life has a way of turning out the way it is supposed to most of the time . . . and I hope that way makes you smile and to all WT players . . . the same
Absolutely.
I play mostly naval and Bluewater is a mess at low tiers with many nations and BRs simply too empty for a balanced lineup and forcing noobs to rise the ranks so quickly they face getting battered due to lacking experience and crew skills.
But the money is in high tier or big name pemiums so not a surprise. Except if you dont nurture new talent as the old guard leave its a slippery slope. Tier I & II and the learning curve may not be sexy but they are inherently important.
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