Just looking at some graphs (decline in player numbers) [ Edited ]

[Cheese9Man]

Got nothing to do so I was curious how the graphs look from steam and twitch since these are the only ones we have access to. Though not necessarily the whole population but I think these are enough of a sample size to draw some conclusions or trends. All I can say is that competition spices things up. On the other hand, I think Apex is doing fine financially so don't forget to grab that $160 mythic skin on December 6th. 

Graph showing the number of steam players since the game's release on Steam on Nov 4, 2020. There was a steep decline around September-October. 

This one is the trend from the anniversary season to the present. All time high peak players were recorded in August but slowly declined afterwards. Apex's numbers were climbing up non-stop from December of 2021 until the end of August. The end of July had the ALGS championships and S14 started early August with the main feature of the updated KC and Vantage.

Average player counts from Feb to today. The LTMs back to back in October didn't help with the numbers.

Twitch viewership average from the anniversary season to the present. Same trend with the steam numbers.

Same timeline from a different twitch tracking website.

[Cheese9Man · Accepted solution]

Just reflecting more of the data that we have. Of course like in all things, the cause of the drop in players is multi-factorial and can't be blamed on one singular cause. 

1. One interesting thing about the drop of player numbers is that a new BR map is not enough to keep players playing. I always thought that a new map is the biggest content drop they can do. I guess that's my personal bias that a new BR map is the best thing. Season 11 introducing storm point has lower numbers than season 12's anniversary season.

2. Overwatch and call of duty. Apex is the only BR that I will play but playing BR can be tiresome. Apex doesn't have that secondary mode to relax after a sweaty BR match. Arenas is not it. Well Apex has those modes in Control and Gun Run but they continue to refuse to add it permanently. These two modes won't be in the game for the rest of 2022. It can come back in January but why wait for that long?

3. Is apex dead? Far from it. Is it dying? We can't really say but Respawn should step up their game. 

4. These stuttering issues as well as that xbox delay issue a season ago and how long before these issues are fixed slowly add frustration to the players. 

5. Add requested features. Custom matches and cross progression. While I won't use these, other people do. It's even Respawn who said custom matches are coming. Same goes with the next gen update to the game. Where is it?

6. Apex is almost 4 years old. People can get tired of the game.

7. Mix it up just for the sake of mixing can help with the game being stale even in the sacrifice of balance. League of legends and DOTA 2 sometimes do this to force meta changes. It has its pros and c0ns of course. Mixing up the weapons a lot last season was really good in my opinion. 

8. Listen to your community. 

9. Not a lot of you play rank in the AHQ but some players primarily play this mode. Having the same 4 dive trails for 4 years, a 1 inch JPEG for a badge and holospray, and charm is not enough anymore. 

[hayhor]

@Cheese9Man It's all related to OW2 and COD releases. Why they need to get serious about other modes as options. We may be seeing a shift away from BR. It was bound to happen eventually, tho I thought it would take more time. Who knows tho, those games are still in honeymoon stages. I'm interested to see the MW2 numbers after warzone 2 releases. To me that will tell if it's just a temporary new game thing or a shift from BR.

[Cheese9Man]

@hayhor I agree. I think Respawn somehow foresaw the importance of other modes besides BR hence the investment in Control, Gun Run and that other mode.

[Cro_Pittt]

@hayhor Warzone 2 will for sure keep a larger player base than apex simply because it's cod. The hype around it though has never been so high, i think and some Apex players will try it and maybe remain there if it's a better supported game.

This is why S15 needs to be perfect, otherwise numbers will keep going down unfortunately.

[LaughingSharko]

I can only speak personally, but my playtime also reflects that graph. It's because of the sense of achievement and the battle pass.

Basically, I don't really enjoy playing Apex anymore "just because." I'm a "team player" in terms of trying to help my teammates, but I don't like grouping up, voice chat or interacting, etc. In other words, I'm not looking to make friends online, lol. I always queue solo.

This means I have fun in Arenas and LTMs, and I hate BR. I hate looting for 10 minutes and getting mowed down because we ran into the Smurf squad with one player who can kill the entire lobby with one eye poked out.

I have fun when I'm performing well, but also when I'm making progress toward a goal. Once I finish the battle pass (just doing dailies and weeklies casually takes me about 2 months), I lose all motivation to keep playing. I made an exception because I loved the LTMs in October, but I still only played a couple matches and logged off when the horrific matchmaking kept putting me with MrTwitchAllStar. Without any real sense of rewards, there's no point to it for me.

I should also point out how continually diluting the loot pool cheapens the value of Apex packs. I used to love earning them. Now I know most of the time, I'm going to end up with backgrounds or holo sprays for some random legend I hardly ever use.

Just my two cents. Also, I should point out how the way they're forcing Legendary skin purchases with Apex coins only is another turnoff. If it were possible to collect more of them with crafting shards, or get a larger variety of recolors with legend tokens, there would be more reasons to keep grinding. 

[DethMetalMilkMan]

@Cro_Pittt I will be trying Warzone. Few of my friends enjoyed Warzone 1 and do not enjoy Apex. So will undoubtedly take a break from Apex to play with them.
If Warzone 2s gunplay is anything like its multi player, I doubt I will be staying long.
Those broken, unbalanced guns were what made me quit it to begin with.
And with load outs meaning your ridiculously unbalanced gun is just an airdrop away, nah. Not for me.
But alas, will give it a go and then come back no doubt.
Though as you say, many will try it and stay.

[Cheese9Man]

@DethMetalMilkMan I’ll try Warzone if it’s less than 100gb. LOL.

I definitely need that extra SSD for the PS5.

[HappyHourSumwur]

@Cheese9Man We'll have to see what happens once the shine is off of OW2 and MW2. I stopped playing the original OW after a year or so because it got really stale. Every game felt the same. BR doesn't suffer from that given the RNG elements but that's also a double edged sword. Apex suffers from the devs failing to talk to the community about what they are doing or not doing about long standing issues like audio and matchmaking. It also suffers from a community that is never truly happy with anything.

[hayhor]

@Cro_Pittt I meant warzone compared to MW2. Warzone has been their money maker. They typically make 3 or 4x what regular COD makes. MW2 was the biggest cod sales in like 12 to 15 years though. So my statement was more about are we seeing a shift in preferred game modes.

[hayhor]

@DethMetalMilkMan People forget how messed up Warzone was by the end. I had multiple friends who preferred it to Apex but stopped playing Warzone because of the cheating and the weekly meta gun changes. So many people left that game.