Amazon’s breakoutMMORPGNew Worldlost over 500 thousand players in a single month, according to theSteam Chartsof the game. After reaching a total of 913,027 simultaneous players near launch, on October 3, the game has experienced a constant drop in this number, with recent daily totals under 350 thousand players.
While these are still impressive numbers, the continuous decline also indicatesNew Worldhas some trouble keeping the community engaged, which might prove to be a problem in the future.
As an MMORPG,New Worldis highly dependent on an active online community. Contrary to single-player games, an MMORPG only has meaning when players can interact with one another to cooperate and beat more demanding challenges or even challenge each other for combat. While a drop in the number of players is expected for any MMO after launch, losing 500 thousand players is still a massive blow forNew World, as it shows Amazon needs to keep offering new endgame content to give veterans players something to do.
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Released last September 28,New Worldwas praised by players for its buy-to-play business model, in which players get full access to the game with a single-time purchase instead of paying up a monthly subscription. In addition, to finance future expansions,New Worldalso offersmicrotransactionin-game. However, since these microtransactions are only related to cosmetic items, the game’s progression is not affected by putting some extra dollars intoNew World.
AlthoughNew Worldexperienced a successful launch, the game has been plagued by bugs and issues that push away some players. Among the biggest complaints was the auto-ban system that could be abused by different factions to stop high-level players from taking part inPvPevents.
Amazon denies an auto-ban is in place, butthere’s enough evidence to support that an automated system was in placeat least during the first weeks afterNew World’s launch. Negative reviews onNew World’s Steam Pagealso underline how players are faced with connectivity issues, how Amazon is slow to fix game-breaking bugs, and how the game lacks things to do for players who are already high-level.
While MMORPGs are expected to drop content frequently,New Worldis still polishing its core gameplay experience. If Amazon doesn’t fix the situation fast, they might have trouble keeping the player base they still have.
