As you know that your player base is only about max 5,000 players compared to other games which are worse than dust i.e COD (yes i said the forbidden name) but this problem mainly lies in Advertising dust, im pretty sure anyone that goes on the PlayStation store never really checks the FREE GAME section because if a game is free than its most likely garbage. So maybe if CCP makes a trailer to put on T.V. , i know it is expensive but we are going to increase our player count by hundreds of thousands. With this, more players buying AUR = more money for CCP. Also a noob friendly zone were noobs stay in academy till 1.5 mil sp. Another reason people are running away is because the moment when noobs jump out of the academy with 600k sp and they get proto stomped.

"If a game is free it's most likely garbage"

Dust is one of those garbage games, thats why people don't play.

just because you see a max of 5k on at once does not mean that is your entire playerbase.

Dust probably has something like 50-60k players.. hell possibly more.

Remember, alot of people don't continue playing after hitting cap also

is there only 3 time zones in the entire world, working at the same schedules and deciding when to play video games?

Eve has over 500k playerbase , usually max online is like 45-55k

typically , about 10-15% of all players will be online at once from what I can tell with a lot of games



I kinda mis-read how you worded that... but I'm still going to keep my statement here :\

I always find it funny when someone confuses the number of players logged in at one time with the number of people who play the game.

Think about this. DUST University has over 1400 active members. (Once a month we kick anyone who has not logged on in 30 days.) If there were only 5000 people playing this game then 28% of DUST mercs would be DUST University members. You would have D-Uni squads in almost every match your played.

I think a conservative estimate of total membership could probably be gotten by multiplying the average online player count by 12, but that would still only be a rough and estimate.

Another approach might be to take the average number of people logged into DUST, divide it by the average length of time people play, and then multiply it by 24 hours.

For instance: 4500 (average on)/2 hours (average session length) x 24 hours = 54,000 players.

If you disagree with the average number of people logged in or the average session length, then plug in your own numbers and see what you get.

A big advertisement push right now would maybe add 5000 more players for a week, and create 4500 gamers that will never touch the game again.

I'd prefer to treat this game as still in beta. The main attraction of this game is almost non-existant right now. We don't have a full variety of racial Assault Rifles, or a full variety of suits & vehicles. Until then there can never be a real balancing effort, and the gameplay will remain substandard.

I'd be happy waiting a LONG time for CCP to make an advertising push. Maybe even until the game's inevitable move to PS4.

They need to do something ASAP if they want to survive. A soon as Planetside 2 releases on PS4 I can see a mass exodus to a game thats free to play, does not require 6 months of SP farming to be even partially competitive, the graphics will be better, more players and larger maps, not to forget the actual territorial conquests. I have only been playing Dust about 3 months now and I do love it even if I die 10 times in a match. CCP needs to start getting serious about the player base. Advertising is not the only way to get exposure to the game. If they made additional content such as new battle maps maps, new equipment or weapons instead of just nerfing and tweeking the existing stuff, It might just get exposure by word of mouth. If there was something exciting to talk about.

I hate to say it, but as a new player myself, I know 50% of the reason I'm playing right now is because I'm an EVE fan (not player anymore - stupid dying PCs....), I'm familiar with EVE style fittings, Skill progression and the market.

I know there are well rounded game mechanics and content in EVE e.g. Stealth/scanner mechanics and racial variants for all ship types as well as multiple Tiers (I.e ships with different bonuses - not just extra slots and CPU/pg). I can also grasp how amazing this game could be when EVE players have reason to care about the game. Basically half the reason I play is faith.

New players have no reason to have faith (hell...EVE/DUST vets seem to struggle to find reasons if general discussion is anything to go by).

I imagine most new players will say what my friend said when he saw me playing - 'this looks like a cross between halo and battlefield...but ****'.

Who would you advertise to?

This game is terrible as an FPS, let's be honest it's just bad in this capacity. Glacial fixes and grinding skill system really kills it here along with hit detection and aiming.

Eve vets will hate the fact that the game has so little to do with Eve, no player trading and the same boring pvp mode OVER & OVER.

MMO fans? The new player experience will demoralize them as there is no content for new players beyond 10 matches in Academy.

You'd have to aim for people with hopes and dreams that this game could turn into something special. They would have to be willing to wait YEARS and not get sidetracked with other games.

We are still a year or more away from a real launch so I'd expect the advertising to wait until then.

That's the same reason I find the concept of "High level play" incompatable with DUST.

The game is both incomplete and unbalanced. You have to be crazy to think you could run a stable competion environment in DUST at the moment. Nerfs, buffs, and new equipment constantly upset the playing field.