Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2

[ltm]

If most expert players leave then AOE2 as we know it now would probably be pretty much dead for the time being.

Not from a players perspective of course, i'm sure there will be plenty people still playing but as entertainment it would change radically.

That scenario kinda reminds me of the failed Super League attempt in football, then CL as we know it now would've been dead as well even with plenty of decent teams still participating.

 

[Lokalo]

No, says the guy who understands bacics business. A project as huge as Aoe IV won't flop in 3 months.
Will be huge in 5 years? Idk, no one knows. But those guys thinking "numbers are already going down, aoe II scene will be the same in a few weeks" are just daydream.

AoE IV will be a big thing. For a while? Forever? Who knows. But it is and will be a big thing.

That doesn't mean it will kill aoe II. Some pro payers will change to Aoe IV, and some won't. If you ask me, feels like an huge reset to the elite league of Aoe II

You say you know business, but all it sounds super random stuff, the only thing I agree that no one knows for sure what will happen.

And I don't get how comes we can't compare numbers? That's the most logical thing to do. So you saying aoe IV will be huge thing, because big company created it. Sure they can invest a lot of money to gather more people into it. But I don't think game without players can suceed even with bigger streamers. Like it can prolong time the game lives for sure, but one day that will fall.

Currently aoe4 has almost 19k players, a week ago same time it had almost 25k. And every week is similar like this, its dropping quite fast, which is natural due is new game, but at same time if it keeps like this in 2-3 weeks ir will have same amount of players as aoe2. Is it good or bad? I don't know, depends how long aoe4 will keep dropping player numbers I guess, but those benefits of aoe4 like having faster queue and stuff won't be there anymore having same or lower amount of players as in aoe2. Freshness of the game also going away soon.

I mean there are 2 very different aspects and question is how much they are related to each other. First is aoe2 pros might move to aoe4, which of course can affect amount of players playing a lot. Second is how many players total will play aoe2 and aoe4. If in a month or 2 there will be 20k players on aoe2 at peak of the day and 10-15k on aoe4, will it be attractive enough to move there? There are many factors of course, one is new game, so it is fresh and fun, but I think online player amount means quite a lot too. Not sure if it converts to more viewers, but bigger player base means bigger community and that community is narrower every week for aoe4 and I might be wrong, but for aoe4 to be big and so on those numbers dropping too fast, especially that I would imagine on aoe4 due it is new game there are still way more single player players.

So again, you can tell those numbers mean nothing, but I personally do believe they do tell quite a bit. If there will be 10k players peak per day in a month it will already be way lower than aoe2 and to kill aoe2 and take most of attention I don't think it is enough just to make some tournaments and stuff on aoe4, player base has to be there too. I don't think you can make game popular and succesfull for long if there are not many people playing it.

 

[amazing_knight]

https://twitter.com/ZuppiAoe/status/1462720664989843461

"Hopefully Aoe2 has many more tournaments to come and this is not the last one, though I fear for the worst." - Zuppi

 

[Bowserlord]

There will at least be Hudden Cup 5, and T90 cant exactly do it on AoE4

He can. There is also a HiddenCup-Event running soon on Aoe4.

 

[longinator]

https://twitter.com/Nili_AoE/status/1463109530456367110

"AoE Tournament Coordinator Nili" speaking: Are you planning an AoE2 tournament in the first half of 2022? The Age of Empires team is still looking to partner with events so please DM me with details if you'd be interested in working with us.

Also

I'd listen to all ideas. Mainly looking for S-Tier-Tournaments. It helps if you have experience in hosting or organizing tournaments. Big following doesn't hurt either.

 

You say you know business, but all it sounds super random stuff, the only thing I agree that no one knows for sure what will happen.

And I don't get how comes we can't compare numbers? That's the most logical thing to do. So you saying aoe IV will be huge thing, because big company created it. Sure they can invest a lot of money to gather more people into it. But I don't think game without players can suceed even with bigger streamers. Like it can prolong time the game lives for sure, but one day that will fall.

Currently aoe4 has almost 19k players, a week ago same time it had almost 25k. And every week is similar like this, its dropping quite fast, which is natural due is new game, but at same time if it keeps like this in 2-3 weeks ir will have same amount of players as aoe2. Is it good or bad? I don't know, depends how long aoe4 will keep dropping player numbers I guess, but those benefits of aoe4 like having faster queue and stuff won't be there anymore having same or lower amount of players as in aoe2. Freshness of the game also going away soon.

I mean there are 2 very different aspects and question is how much they are related to each other. First is aoe2 pros might move to aoe4, which of course can affect amount of players playing a lot. Second is how many players total will play aoe2 and aoe4. If in a month or 2 there will be 20k players on aoe2 at peak of the day and 10-15k on aoe4, will it be attractive enough to move there? There are many factors of course, one is new game, so it is fresh and fun, but I think online player amount means quite a lot too. Not sure if it converts to more viewers, but bigger player base means bigger community and that community is narrower every week for aoe4 and I might be wrong, but for aoe4 to be big and so on those numbers dropping too fast, especially that I would imagine on aoe4 due it is new game there are still way more single player players.

So again, you can tell those numbers mean nothing, but I personally do believe they do tell quite a bit. If there will be 10k players peak per day in a month it will already be way lower than aoe2 and to kill aoe2 and take most of attention I don't think it is enough just to make some tournaments and stuff on aoe4, player base has to be there too. I don't think you can make game popular and succesfull for long if there are not many people playing it.

The majority of AoE4 players are on Gamepass, not Steam.

Stats like pic related are the norm nowadays.

 

[Sticky Ice Cream]

Playing/watching AoE II was never about S-Tier tournaments for me, or tournaments in general, or S-Tier players even. But for me it's about any high level game, and meme games too. So nearly every player at the tournament level leaving AoE II would be like returning to Voobly days for me, which is not a scary thing at all when Voobly days were the seed that grew into so many tournament games in the first place.

 

The majority of AoE4 players are on Gamepass, not Steam.

Any data about this or do you just assume this? If you assume this, please state that clearly. If you have data about that, please post your source.

Stats like pic related are the norm nowadays.

That aren't stats, that are barely numbers.

Aoe2

Src.: https://twitchstats.net/game/13389-Age of Empires II

AoE4

Src.: https://twitchstats.net/game/498482-Age of Empires IV

 

[oozkan]

No, says the guy who understands basics business. A project as huge as Aoe IV won't flop in 3 months.
Will be huge in 5 years? Idk, no one knows. But those guys thinking "numbers are already going down, aoe II scene will be the same in a few weeks" are just daydream.

AoE IV will be a big thing. For a while? Forever? Who knows. But it is and will be a big thing

Hmm this post, this kind of belief without questioning... it is gonna be big, huge and belittling others opinion... It reminds me something, let me try:

Dear patito,

Hereby I am writing to you on behalf of my client who currently resides in Nigeria. While he was living in Argentina, he had a bitcoin wallet but unfortunately he can't access now, because of strict regulations to ISP providers that are introduced by 2nd "very special important going to be a next big thing" court in Lagos. We believe there are 30K worth of coin in the wallet, but we require a VPN between Nigeria and Argentina to reach wallet. Could please provide us a very little amount of money 50 dollar to establish connection, we promise pay back at least twice amount. I am sure a business genius like you will be aware of how profitable transaction it is. Thank you, you can find account details below.

Title: Prince of Nigeria, Name: Patito Notantetokounmpo
Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number - NUBAN: 0808666555

Thank you!

 

[Lokalo]

The majority of AoE4 players are on Gamepass, not Steam.

Stats like pic related are the norm nowadays.

As simonsan said, curious if you have the data for it or just assuming. But even if you are right, which may be or not, but let's assume you are, so what does it mean? It doesn't change the fact steam player count dropping a lot pretty much everyday. Does it mean people who are on gamepass will keep playing? Are numbers not dropping so bad for gamepass players? I mean that itself tells nothing, except there might be way more players daily than steam shows, but if players on steam drop who paid full price for the game, then people who paid for it 1 dollar(or how much that gamepass costs?) probably stop playing it even more often.

So again, even if your statement is true, what does it mean? As it also can mean that price of the game is too high and people do not see it as being that good game to pay full price. All of this is just thoughts, because the only thing so far we have as a fact here is steam charts.

 

[Lord_patito]

Hmm this post, this kind of belief without questioning... it is gonna be big, huge and belittling others opinion... It reminds me something, let me try:

Dear patito,

Hereby I am writing to you on behalf of my client who currently resides in Nigeria. While he was living in Argentina, he had a bitcoin wallet but unfortunately he can't access now, because of strict regulations to ISP providers that are introduced by 2nd "very special important going to be a next big thing" court in Lagos. We believe there are 30K worth of coin in the wallet, but we require a VPN between Nigeria and Argentina to reach wallet. Could please provide us a very little amount of money 50 dollar to establish connection, we promise pay back at least twice amount. I am sure a business genius like you will be aware of how profitable transaction it is. Thank you, you can find account details below.

Title: Prince of Nigeria, Name: Patito Notantetokounmpo
Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number - NUBAN: 0808666555

Thank you!

Joke's on you, never trust an argentinian 11

 

[Beanslinger]

T90 leaving will have a bugger impact than AoE4 he was a great promoter and helped out the community a lot, and while he still streams and does AoE2, theres still 9,000 viewers he lost moving to Facebook and many won't even know there's events like Kotd4 happening right now.

 

[LeoMontero]

T90 leaving will have a bugger impact than AoE4 he was a great promoter and helped out the community a lot, and while he still streams and does AoE2, theres still 9,000 viewers he lost moving to Facebook and many won't even know there's events like Kotd4 happening right now.

i really cant accept this, how can you watch age2 and not know that kotd is now?? are people so dumb to not investigate?? people need that someone tell them what to watch or what tournament is going on?? im not telling a c tier tournament, but an s tier. its like beeing a footbal fan and not knowing that champions league is this week.

 

[Beanslinger]

If its not on a channel they watch, a casual fan might not have the motivation or opportunity find out what aoe2 events are happening this week. Just like how I can be a casual fan of football and not know that champions league is on this week because I live on the opposite side of the planet and its never talked about here.

 

[Tempires]

If its not on a channel they watch, a casual fan might not have the motivation or opportunity find out what aoe2 events are happening this week. Just like how I can be a casual fan of football and not know that champions league is on this week because I live on the opposite side of the planet and its never talked about here.

but all channels stream KOTD final stages

 

[Beanslinger]

Yes but with only 800 people watching t90s stream instead of 12,000 like you usually do with finals, not everyone is going to other streams, some just don't watch because they dont know its on or don't care enough

 

Any data about this or do you just assume this? If you assume this, please state that clearly. If you have data about that, please post your source.


That aren't stats, that are barely numbers.

Aoe2
View attachment 196663

Src.: https://twitchstats.net/game/13389-Age of Empires II

AoE4
View attachment 196664

Src.: https://twitchstats.net/game/498482-Age of Empires IV

Nah, it's just based on the fact that there's 3 times more ongoing matches in AoE4 than AoE2, and since AoE4 doesn't have 1.5 times as many players as AoE2 on just steam, you can reasonably conclude an equal, if not more, number of players are on Gamepass.

Yeah AoE2 viewership took a real beating since AoE4 released, as you can see on your charts.

 

[AkeNo]

I looked at the current top players of the AoE 2 ladder, because I would like to know who did not play AoE 4 or does not want to switch in the near future.

Some of them might play on a different account for the AoE 4 ladder, but so far I did not find:

MbL
F1Re
Valas
TheMax
Barles
Miguel
SongSong
BadBoy
Modri
classicpro
Zuppi
Daniel
The_Dragonstar
Hoang
St4rk
Hearttt
Whitecourt
LaN
Chris
SobeK
Mr. Bean
Lucky Rox
Noisick
Overtaken
Fedex
StrayDog
jibatong
Twigg

If you know whether any of those does play AoE 4 or has already mentioned that they want to do so in the near future, or you can add any top level player (this is just from the current top 100), please respond here.
I just want to see who potentially would "disappear" from the pro scene if all top tournaments in the near future were AoE 4 (which I don't believe).

Daniel has played AoE4 for sure

 

Nah, it's just based on the fact that there's 3 times more ongoing matches in AoE4 than AoE2, and since AoE4 doesn't have 1.5 times as many players as AoE2 on just steam, you can reasonably conclude an equal, if not more, number of players are on Gamepass.

Yeah AoE2 viewership took a real beating since AoE4 released, as you can see on your charts.

Again, you should proof what you say with numbers if you have them, if you don't have them you shouldn't state as if it was "facts" what you say.

These are the numbers of online matches on the leaderboards from AoeX.net for both Steam and XBox, which I assume included XBox Gamepass online players.
People show up in these ranks for AoE2 when they played their 10 placement matches and played a game in the last 30 days.
For AoE4 I'm not sure, I think they have 5 placement matches (at least for their future ranked play), so not sure if that's also the case for the quickplay feature right now.

AoE4 Leaderboards
Src.: https://aoeiv.net

Custom: 157,350 entries
QM 1v1: 45,375 entries
QM 2v2: 51,284 entries
QM 3v3: 40,443 entries
QM 4v4: 31,674 entries

AoE2 Leaderboards
Src.: https://aoe2.net/
Unranked: 183,402 entries
RM 1v1: 38,140 entries
Team RM: 61,834 entries
EW 1v1: 2,307 entries
Team EW: 2,962 entries

 

[Lokalo]

Nah, it's just based on the fact that there's 3 times more ongoing matches in AoE4 than AoE2, and since AoE4 doesn't have 1.5 times as many players as AoE2 on just steam, you can reasonably conclude an equal, if not more, number of players are on Gamepass.

Yeah AoE2 viewership took a real beating since AoE4 released, as you can see on your charts.

"You can reasonably conclude". Well I don't know about that, as I already mentioned it, but thing is for now there are very small gaps between elo. There top5 is like 1800 elo and it appeared this week. Now if we exclude top20 players, there are 580(top20-600) players between 1700-1450. Like there are tons of people around same rating, but those gaps soon should get bigger and bigger and with much bigger gaps between rating queue naturally will take longer

 

[Rorarimbo]

Right now on Steam there are 13803 players playing AoE4; 10437 playing AoE2 DE; 3480 playing AoE2 HD. Meaning 13917 AoE2 vs 13803 AoE4 on Steam. Ofc no idea how many the xbox guys are, or how many still play on Voobly. It might be just for an hour today but its a milestone and shows a trend.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

yFor those who don't know, historically speaking aoe2 was supposed to die already a few times.
For some... the release of HD was aoe2 dying.
For some... the end of Huns wars was aoe2 dying.
For some... the many balance changes was aoe2 dying.
For some... the inclusion of new civs was aoe2 dying.
For some... the release of DE was aoe2 dying.

And yet every single time it grew bigger AND better.

aoe2 can grow and certainly can also go smaller in size. It can be actively developed by Microsoft like it is now, or it can be left abandoned like it was in the past, being managed entirely by its community. Many things can happen, but dying.... There are far too many old nerds like us for this game to die.
Every single time along the way it was just a change, just like life is everchanging. Accept it, embrace it, sit tight and enjoy the ride <3

you mispelled hunwhores. Kappa

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

Right now on Steam there are 13803 players playing AoE4; 10437 playing AoE2 DE; 3480 playing AoE2 HD. Meaning 13917 AoE2 vs 13803 AoE4 on Steam. Ofc no idea how many the xbox guys are, or how many still play on Voobly. It might be just for an hour today but its a milestone and shows a trend.

Looks like aoe4 dynasty is coming to an end.... and it didn't last too long

 

[LeoMontero]

another thing with AOE4. has DM?? because im a RM fan, but a DM player. can i change to aoe4??

 

[SouFire]

Aoe4 has more ongoing matches running, last time i checked it was x2.5 the numbers than aoe2, i like to use the ongoing matches numbers cause they are trustworthy, it doesn't count guys that left the game open or are just doing SP stuff, when you use those numbers from players that actually have an impact in the multiplayer then those 13k players you see on steam+the guys on the microsoft store are just in real numbers something like 4k players active with a peak of 6k on weekends, if aoe2-net adds a way to count users playing then we could talk about real numbers of active players and stop using those inflated numbers that don't help at all in the MP scene.

But yeah aoe4 hasn't been really successful, if you remove the big names streaming with their audience, you will find that aoe4 streams in the majority have 1 viewer average, meaning that the game hasn't created interested consumers browsing for its content, sometimes the big numbers are held by one single sc2 streamer.

As for the playerbase, their numbers aren't really big but well but lets be fair lets wait until 1 month and then verify the data 2 months later.

But compared to their big brothers it seems aoe4is being overshadowed by forza horizon 5 and the upcoming halo infinite which already has much bigger numbers, like i said several months ago aoe4 needed a free multiplayer to succeed.