Palworld lead: lower concurrent player numbers don't mean games are 'dead'

Palworld global community manager and Pocketpair Publishing boss John "Bucky" Buckley says games aren't "dead" just because their concurrent user number has dropped over time. "Just a thought but…do many fundamentally misunderstand what CCU means?" he wrote. He explains that a CCU of 5,000 at one moment and a lower number later doesn't necessarily mean the same people are playing — some log off while others log on.

"This is why DAU [daily active users] and MAU [monthly active users], the tracking of 'unique players' over a period of time, is significantly more important," he adds. "If you played a 5v5 game for three hrs straight with a DAU of 5,000, 30-min rounds, then you would only meet 1% of players." Buckley argues many games can "chug along with a few thousand players every day and be just fine," pointing to Foxhole as an example.

A quick look over at SteamDB shows that Foxhole only has 1,941 players currently, but a positive reception overall. He does concede that some titles do end up shutting down.

palworld, pocketpair, john buckley, ccu, dau, mau, concurrent players, unique players, foxhole, steamdb