But, how can you compare a 20 year old game with a brand new game? Seems kinda unfair to the brand new game!!
Don't all those numbers also indicate a game in constant decline?Google trends doesnt show the absolute value. Reddit online users / player number on ladders (/ twitch viewer count after variety streamer leave) are better indicators imo.
I dont think anyone is denying that, 99% of new games have similar trends anyway. But if you really want to compare the popularity / hype (or whatever you call it) of two games, youd better use numbers which are reasonably comparable. Not steamcharts which dont include game pass players or google trends which dont show absolute value.Don't all those numbers also indicate a game in constant decline?
I dont think anyone is denying that, 99% of new games have similar trends anyway. But if you really want to compare the popularity / hype (or whatever you call it) of two games, youd better use numbers which are reasonably comparable. Not steamcharts which dont include game pass players or google trends which dont show absolute value.
Btw
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Bill Gates is still richer than me even if he loses 99.99% of his wealth.it took 5 years for aoe2 trend to go from 100 to 25 for aoe4 thats 2 months.
Yesterday the GL boys had an interesting charity stream
I think this is a bit too much interpretation into a single stream to be honest. Viewer numbers fluctuate, follower numbers fluctuate. It is assumed to have higher viewer numbers on a game you already have the majority of followers from, in the end these people are not variety streamers. In general I feel people are way too much focussing on these numbers and just trying to support their already made up arguments instead of looking at the numbers and see where they are flawed, what they are not showing and take a whole different approach. In general you shouldn't do it this way around, rather you should look at the numbers and see where something outstanding is happening and then find a reason why. So far I don't see anything uncommon in these stats to be honest. It's also not alarming or anything, just business as usual.
Is this your way of applying for a mod position in r/aoe4?I think this is a bit too much interpretation into a single stream to be honest. Viewer numbers fluctuate, follower numbers fluctuate. It is assumed to have higher viewer numbers on a game you already have the majority of followers from, in the end these people are not variety streamers. In general I feel people are way too much focussing on these numbers and just trying to support their already made up arguments instead of looking at the numbers and see where they are flawed, what they are not showing and take a whole different approach. In general you shouldn't do it this way around, rather you should look at the numbers and see where something outstanding is happening and then find a reason why. So far I don't see anything uncommon in these stats to be honest. It's also not alarming or anything, just business as usual.
That's exactly what op had done with his long and detailed post. Can't help if you're blinded by your need to always defend aoe4rather you should look at the numbers and see where something outstanding is happening and then find a reason why.
I think this is a bit too much interpretation into a single stream to be honest. Viewer numbers fluctuate, follower numbers fluctuate. It is assumed to have higher viewer numbers on a game you already have the majority of followers from, in the end these people are not variety streamers. In general I feel people are way too much focussing on these numbers and just trying to support their already made up arguments instead of looking at the numbers and see where they are flawed, what they are not showing and take a whole different approach. In general you shouldn't do it this way around, rather you should look at the numbers and see where something outstanding is happening and then find a reason why. So far I don't see anything uncommon in these stats to be honest. It's also not alarming or anything, just business as usual.
I'm sorry, that you didn't like my comment.Is this your way of applying for a mod position in r/aoe4?
I didn't say numbers don't matter. I just find it funny, that due to AoE4 everyone seems to get into statistics. But only to find proofs to their already made up arguments. Which is flawed in itself.Every single metric shows aoe4 in negative light. And, every single time these metrics are brought up, someone is there to comment numbers don't matter.
I don't have any reason to defend anything. I have reason to critical think of arguments and proofs brought up and often question the reliability of numbers and things that are stated as facts, which they aren't.That's exactly what op had done with his long and detailed post. Can't help if you're blinded by your need to always defend aoe4
I said this doesn't have to mean AoE2 has to be better content for viewership but it's obvious these streamers' audiences prefer AoE2.
Having people unfollow is something "outstanding" to look into.
I dislike of Nili's full switch to aoe4, but honestly this question is just disrespect towards him. We know nothing what GL's as a team goal is both in aoe2 and aoe4 nor what's Nili's part there. Also he did tons for aoe2.Sorry for going a bit offtopic here, but why is Nili still part of the GL team?
From what i have heard he is even worse at competitive Aoe4 than he is at Aoe2, how is that even remotely a professional player?
Unless he is the "caster" of GL ( he is obvioulsy one of the best casters in Age2 and also one of my favorites)
That's called confirmation bias, and yes, bringing up statistics that confirm ones position can be seen as such.I didn't say numbers don't matter. I just find it funny, that due to AoE4 everyone seems to get into statistics. But only to find proofs to their already made up arguments. Which is flawed in itself.
Yes, because the follower-ship of these streamers is consisting by a majority of AoE2 viewers from over the years. Twitch is sending out notifications to them, when the stream title is changed and people will more likely open their stream if it contains AoE2 content when they were following them for AoE2 content. So it's nothing special really imho.
It depends if this is something significant. A few followers less during a stream is not really outstanding, it's business as usual. So I wonder where the significance is in these numbers then. How does it compare to other streams of that content creator and so on.
Yesterday the GL boys had an interesting charity stream (thumb ups for that). During the broadcast, they have been streaming both AoE4 and AoE2. This gives an opportunity to have a look at the viewership for the two games in the same streams on the same day for several streamers (you can see the stats below).
What looks apparent for me is their viewership is still predominantly AoE2 oriented. You can see around double the viewer numbers during the AoE2 part but also a very big difference when it comes to followers. The AoE4 segment had been shorter yes but during this part of the stream not only followers were fewer but they were in the negative for some of the players - 1 for Jordan, - 4 for Nili, and - 6 for Slam. There would have been more unfollows but its likely they were covered by people following too.
If we have a look at this act of unfollowing a streamer, it is very telling. I have said several times that people complaining about too much AoE4 content is not pleasant but it is not so bad, because the alternative is to give up and leave. Unfollowing someone is an extra step than just changing the stream or closing twitch down. It is a final act of leaving a channel, something not so common as normally twitch channels only generate new followers over time, unfollowing is very sporadic for the most part.
I have to agree that the forest nothing x256 mod perhaps had an extra fun factor during the AoE2 segment, but could it account for double the viewership? I say not. First I have noticed these guys having more viewers with AoE2 content recently, second the unfollowing itself as a process, third - well can you play such fun goofy games with pure fun on AoE4?
From the numbers, we cannot say that for sure AoE2 is so much more fun to watch than AoE4, but we can say for sure GL players viewers prefer AoE2 as content on their channels. Honestly, when T90 left twitch we were wondering who is going to benefit the most from the rest of the streamers. I myself was wondering how much the GL boys will benefit as viewership from The Viper departing, too. Seeing them having these numbers in general and none reaching a thousand viewers during an apparently very fun stream is sad. They used to get to a thousand easily before, now they can`t during a very nice and fun stream and usually having around 200/300 viewers if they stream AoE4.
I think what is now happening is a separation of the communityAoE2 and AoE4. And it has been going on for a while. People unfollowing or simply ignoring these streams has happened before yesterday during AoE4 content. This is damaging the "viewership" communities these players have. For me personally, even when they stream AoE2 they do not have the numbers they used to have and could have if the focus had not been on AoE4 mostly during the last two months. Some people have already just left, damage has already been done.
This leads us to the "loyalty" question explored in this forum before. Should followers remain loyal, do streamers some loyalty back. Well if we don't view it from a loyalty but customer service perspective it is clear. If you change what you offer, you risk losing your "loyal customers".
Now here comes the question what is the trade-off? If this process continues for several months more the level separation between AoE2 and AoE4 viewership would increase even more dramatically. If the GL boys get to a point with majority of AoE4 viewers it may become too hard to return to AoE2, too. Leaving the question of loyalty behind the question is: "Is continuing to destroy the self AoE2 viewership community worth it? Does AoE4 give so much more potential and opportunity viewership wise"?
Now, this is the big question. for me personally, the answer is no. Why do I think so? First, the viewership bigger AoE4 streams have is not that impressive. Streams like Bongwa and Grubby come with huge followings from other places/games. Here comes DeMuslin, too. First of he has his older following, but his winning the last big AoE4 tournament only brings his viewers to around 2/3k viewers in the dedicated winner stream. Has the AoE4 hype train something left in the tank? This is not impressive and it has been less than 2 months. This was only the second S-tier tournament (which btw had far fewer viewers than KotD4 had just one week prior).
Now if we look at Hera he has gone exclusively in AoE4 direction recently and he indeed has a good number of viewers. But I will argue he was the biggest AoE stream after T90 and Viper and he is the one benefiting from their departure for FB the most. He already had very high (similar) viewer numbers before and his numbers recently can`t be described as "exploding". This "subatron" that's going on doesn't look like he is very happy with the number of viewers and subs relative to the expectations, but I might be wrong with that. What it looks like to me is if you are on the top of the pyramid you may still have an easier way to transition to AoE4 and might get some of those elusive AoE4 viewers coming from other games.
However, having 200/300 viewers during AoE4 streams and losing followers should be alarming and feels very risky to continue like that if you are considering your channel`s health. Even in the long run, I doubt how much potential AoE4 viewership has, seeing how player numbers are plummeting and the fact the biggest channel that could "donate" viewership is in German. Yet again another worry I have is that losing too many of the AoE2 devoted viewers may also mean turning back might get very hard already seeing some of this process happening and people leaving (not being present even during the AoE2 streams.
Here I have been speaking only from a streamer`s perspective. But if we consider that the AoE4 competitive scene is even harder than AoE2 to get to the top where you could expect some positives from AoE4 viewership (again the example with DeMuslims whose numbers are not that impressive). The riddle gets even harder if you want to go into AoE4 direction.
PS. It is obvious I prefer AoE2 and would like to see my favorite players playing it, but this post is not about that. I only have love and respect for Tatito, Daut, Jordan, and the rest, I wannt them to do well, and I have tried to be as objective as possible.
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Awesome post, thanks for this!
Could the fact that GL players get more viewers streaming AoE2 also be due to them just being much better players at AoE2 than AoE4? So if they grind the game and get better at it, viewership might increase with it?
Apart from Viper, who is streaming on FB, none of them has really any accomplishment to speak of in AoE4 so far...
As to the fact AoE2 has now had higher daily peaks than AoE4 there's really no other way to interpret this in my opinion, it's an awful sign for AoE4's player retention. Don't know if Microsoft is all too bothered about that though, since they clearly geared the game towards singleplayers and thus only sale numbers matter to them probably.
I really do wonder what this all means in terms of what game tournament organizers/players are going to prioritize in the next couple of months.
One of the things I'm missing from your post though @Rorarimbo, and call me naive if you want, but I actually take it at face value when players say they are playing AoE4 because...they are having fun with it!
I don't think they are making huge calculations towards what's better for their channels, they are simply having fun with a new game (which happens to be very similar to their favorite game) after spending 15 years playing AoE2.
January should gives an interesting comparison in terms of what twitch viewers prefer to watch, as we will have S-Tier tournaments in both games!
Confirmation bias are real thing, so people should be careful, when looking for numbers supporting their argument. But still there isn't any metric which would show AoE4 as big success. I looked The Viper's YouTube-channel. The Viper uploads both AoE2 and AoE4 videos and AoE2-videos are more popular. Of course The Viper's audience has been exclusive AoE2, but he is one of the best AoE4-players and hasn't (at least yet) bigger audience for his AoE4-content.
Some of them have tried empires apart, so I wouldnt say zero ****, but likely less ****.Popular opinion here
If this so called Aoe4 game didn't have age of empires in the title none of those pros would have given a **** about it.
They also tried Shadow Raid Legends and PrismataSome of them have tried empires apart, so I wouldnt say zero ****, but likely less ****.