There’s an interesting website called SteamDB, which I’ve referenced once before, that contains an enormous wealth of information on video games released on Steam such as their price history, which games have seen a surge of players, a rating system that builds off of and is more accurate than on Steam itself etc. However, one of the most interesting pieces of information is a history of the concurrent player numbers for any particular game. Often games, particularly single-player ones, will see their greatest concurrent player count at the time of its release with slight bumps around the times when it goes on sale. However, I’ve noticed a few single-player video games that have seen their concurrent player count grow beyond what a simple sale could hope to achieve. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at these examples.
1. Celeste
I recently mentioned how I was playing Celeste so it only makes sense that I begin with the game that gave me this topic in the first place. Celeste, an indie precision platformer, is a superb but very challenging game whose bonus levels such as the C-sides and Chapter 9 push your platforming skills to the absolute limit. Having found it a profound experience, both from a storytelling perspective and how brutal but well-designed its gameplay was, I was curious to see how it was performing. Imagine my surprise when I saw something that proved to be highly unusual, an example of a single-player video game that had seen its concurrent player count grow, something rare in the games industry. I would consider this accomplishment a clear sign of the quality of the game.
