Multiplayer numbers?

While attempting to set up a skirmish match in COH2, I almost entered a multiplayer match. I quickly canceled and was able to start the AI skirmish match. The incident forced me to ask a question of myself, “what is the percentage of strategy gamers (RTS, turn based strategy, 4X) that play online versus, or PVP? I classify myself as strategy gamer. I have three computer; they run windows 7, windows XP, windows 98. I need the last 2 to run older strategy games without unnecessary tweaking, games such as, Outlive, S.W.I.N.E, Star trek Armada, Star Trek New Worlds, Metal Fatigue, Starcraft Star Trek TNG: Birth of the Federation, Warcraft 2. For my main machine, I own every C&C game, all Company heroes 1&2 plus expansions and all commander, SUPCOM, SUPCOM FA, Total Annihilation, Stars Wars Empire at War + FOC, The Wargames Collection, Starcaft 2 plus HOS, War hammer 40,000 the complete collection and all DLC, PA, all Total War games and their DLC, Lord of the Rings BFME complete. Owning and playing all those games, I have played less than 2 hours (C&C: General’s Zero Hour) of multiplayer.

I read an article, a few years back that asked and answered this question. I forgot the name of the article, and the site where I read it. The story was a report on a poll, the survey compared multiplayer FPS player base, to strategy gamers. I remember the numbers, but maybe I don’t, my own prejudices could be clouding my recollection. I will not post numbers that I can’t link or corroborate. So I ask the question here “what is the percentage of strategy gamers (RTS, turn based strategy, 4X) that play online multiplayer?”

Me

I don't know the exact ratios, but I can say that the majority of strategy gamers play single player and not multiplayer.

I know this is the case for PA, SupCom 1, and TA – coming from Jon Mavor.

And I'd imagine the majority of all other strategy games are pretty similar.

Apparently most RTS players play the game offline, because either Internet problems or their not confident enough, or they like being able to pause and take breaks.

It was even that way with Supcom data.

which is why we need to take care of.....*dun dun duuunnn* GALACTIC WAR *riots in the streets*

Of course you have to consider age of the games in question. RTS is an old genre, and the older games *were very difficult to get working online* and at a time when *internet connections were rubbish*.

If you go back far enough even FPS games were predominantly a single player affair (Doom 1 / 2, quake 1 etc).

I would bet the proportion of people playing RTS on line is now much higher than it used to be.

I'm not sure, I remember hearing about an RTS where most everything went into the multiplayer (it was meant to be a real multiplayer game) yet the mmajority of players played singleplayer.

Without numbers we can't say, really.

I think the majority of players only play single player, some of them even get on their high horse about it, funny thing is anyone who's never played multiplayer would get absolutely smashed by someone who does in a 1v1. Playing against the computer is like playing against a player incapable of strategic thinking.

Moderator Edit: please be careful about comparisons.​

a lot of players prefer to play strategy games "slowly". Build up slowly, big army and then destroy the enemy in one big blast. That is not how RTS multiplayer works though (if you get at least a bit good opponents). Thats one reason why many prefer to play singleplayer. And then, they dont (want to) invest enough time to master the game.

My guess would be something around 10-15%, maybe even lower.

With a quite blind look into steam player numbers vs all run visible lobbies (filters on all) the amount of people in single player totally dominates the online players. Like maybe 1.000 vs 50-100. Not considering players that don't use steam or are in ranked matches. And PA doesn't even have a single player campaign.

Interestingly, I googled an article on RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11/19/only-23-even-attempted-to-play-multiplayer/ which states, that just 23% of all players of the game Demigod (which is a MOBA oriented game, so strongly focusing on multi player) ever logged into the multi player mode of the game. And a log in is miles away from regularly playing a game online!

True, though the lobby numbers are deceptive...

I mean 1000 players playing single player is, well, 1000 players.

100 multi player lobbies is anywhere from 200 (minimum if all 1 v 1) up to 1000 (if playing 10 player) players total. Lets be conservative and say the lobbies average 3 players, well the ratio isn't quite so drastic at 10:3.

The 100 was already my estimation of summing up all the players in running or waiting lobbies, not the amount of the lobbies themselves.

Before the offline server was added, about 90% of the listed replays were single player games. Now that most single player games are probably being played off Uber's servers, we don't have such a good way to measure the numbers.

you dont mean end of nations by any chance? damn shame with that game

That fits well with my general impression. I just checked into the game a couple of minutes ago and there were 642 people in game (on steam) but only 32 people playing or waiting online (all settings on any to see waiting lobbies and ongoing games).

I own Demigod, I have a copy on Stardock download manger (now GameStop), and a copy from steam. I have over 134 hours playing time…all offline versus the AI. I think Squishy is correct, I like the option of pausing and walking away, playing at my own pace

played only 2 matches of PA online, one win and one loss. I'd argue the exact opposite, and say that more people are playing the game offline, just because Sorian's AI brought the AI far closer to an actual human's level of play than ever before. Closer than supcom's braindead stock AI for sure.

I too have played a lot of the games in your list and tbh its only recently that I've played any of them online. I have zero interest in playing something like civ or a total war game online as I love the challenge of playing long campaigns and evaluating every decision as it comes rather than having a predefined list of rules in my head of what I'll do. I probably would have attempted to play PA online back in the day but a 56K modem was never going to cut it

I honestly think only RTS is played much online (ignore all those turd pay-2-win facebook games!). The maps are small enough that you can reasonably expect any opponent to carry on playing to the conclusion of the game.

When I was young I played C&C Red Alert1 via local network with a friend of school. We also played a bit of the original Age of Empires2 and Starcraft1 later on. Meanwhile I did not touched any RTS game online until the remake of AgeHd2 came out and I started some lan sessions with guys from uni. I was never much into online play until I tried out PA - the massive 10 player matches seemed to be a save start to not fail too hard. And now I'm quite enjoying it. The games suites very well for online play, as setups like FFA or 3vs3vs3 are not as "demanding" and more fun (to me) than paying attention all the time in 1vs1.

Other RTS, building sims or games of the 4x genre I don't play in multiplayer at all, not even in lan mode, as they are much to time consuming, so quite cool how PA could get my attention.

all this talk of "more singleplayer than multiplayer" yeah that statement was made if I recall correctly in Beta.

we're now way past that. I think it would be well advised to ask for another reading.

(though if they play on offline i'm not sure how that's possible, unless the game stores the data and uploads it on a later connection)

citing supcom as primarily offline is of bad taste as that game's audience grew concistantly since into the now FAF which is almost exclusively multiplayer.

As for Starcraft II being more singleplayer that's absolute bullshit.