Half-Life: Alyx’s Launch Doubled the Previous Record for Highest Player Count Ever in a VR Game on SteamMar 26, 2020 - GitHyp Doom Eternal’s Launch Peaked with 100k Players on SteamMar 23, 2020 - GitHyp Doom 64 pops up in an age-rating listing for PC and PS4Jul 27, 2019 - Eurogamer Have You Played Doom VFR?Dec 12, 2018 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun Cybershoes err Cybershoes let me run around in Doom VFR from the comfort of a wheelie chairSep 7, 2018 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun Oh hell, Bethesda just announced Doom EternalJun 10, 2018 - Eurogamer A new Doom movie is in the worksApr 23, 2018 - Eurogamer DOOM VFR PC Patch - January 30Jan 29, 2018 - Community Announcements DOOM VFR PC Patch - January 30Jan 29, 2018 - Community Announcements Doom VFR is more like visiting an interactive Doom exhibit than playing DoomDec 4, 2017 - PC Gamer Doom VFR is out now, so here are the system requirementsNov 30, 2017 - PC Gamer Now Available on Steam - DOOM VFRNov 30, 2017 - Product Release Room-deep in the dead: DOOM VFR out todayNov 30, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun DOOM VFR - Release Time and FAQNov 29, 2017 - Community Announcements DOOM VFR - Release Time and FAQNov 29, 2017 - Community Announcements Bethesda s Hines on VR: It s something all of our studios are looking at and talking aboutSep 29, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun Fallout, Doom, and Skyrim don't need VR, but Bethesda has bigger ideasAug 29, 2017 - PC Gamer Doom VFR Q&A explains how playing a scientist will be just as violent as DoomguyAug 22, 2017 - PC Gamer Bethesda explains the 'F' in Doom VFRJun 15, 2017 - PC Gamer Every PC game announced or trailered at E3 2017Jun 13, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun Bethesda jack in for Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR this yearJun 12, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Virtual Reality is Failing with VR Editions of Popular Games such as Doom and L.A. Noire Bringing in Less Than 100 Concurrent Players on Steam
Very Few Gamers Are Playing New VR Games and Remakes from the Industry's Top Developers Such as Bethesda and Rockstar
When the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift launched in 2016, virtual reality seemed to be the future of gaming. But as those who’ve purchased pricey VR platforms can tell you, despite the revolutionary tech, there’s not much in terms of new games to help justify making the plunge on new hardware.
Therein lies the catch-22 situation that VR is currently finding itself in. Even after being discounted by $200, most gamers still aren’t willing to pay $400-$600 for hardware that lacks big new IPs and requires an expensive PC to play. And the industry’s top game publishers also aren’t willing to invest heavily in developing big new IPs for such a small audience of current VR owners.
Thankfully for early adopters, after well over a year since the launch of the Oculus and Vive, we’re finally seeing triple-A devs attempting to bring their popular franchises to VR… sadly, the results aren’t looking good for the future of VR… at least not in its current form.
Doom VFR’s Players per Hour on Steam via GitHyp
This month, Bethesda Softworks and Rockstar Games both released new VR versions for some of their most iconic triple-A titles. Comparing the peak player counts of the original versions to the new VR remakes shows just how small the VR player base currently is after its stagnant growth in 2017.
Doom VFR‘s December 2nd launch brought in a disappointing peak of 277 concurrent players. And after only two weeks, its average has already dropped to under 50 players an hour — at times even as low as 7 players. Back when the non-VR version of Doom launched in May 2016, Bethesda’s shooter peaked at 31k players on Steam and it still pulls in over 2k concurrent players on the weekends.
L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files’ Players per Hour on Steam via GitHyp
L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files‘ launch was even worse peaking at only 110 players over the weekend. The original version came out back in 2011, before GitHyp started tracking player counts, so its true all-time peak on Steam is unavailable. But for comparison, Rockstar’s crime-solving take on a ’40s Los Angeles still manages to pull in peaks as high as 1.6k players while their modern take, Grand Theft Auto V, remains in Steam’s daily top 5 games pulling in over 100k concurrent players.
Bethesda’s other big launch this month, Fallout 4 VR, was much more successful becoming the most popular VR game ever on Steam with a peak of 2,608 players. But that number was only enough to place the post-apocalyptic role-playing game at #72 on Steam’s list of most played that day. And that peak is nothing compared to the original Fallout 4‘s all-time high of 472k players when it launched in October 2016.
Fallout 4 VR’s Players per Hour on Steam via GitHyp
Becoming the new record holder for most played VR game on Steam wasn’t a difficult task for Bethesda considering that no other VR game has ever broken a thousand concurrent players. Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality has been the only game to come close with a peak of 920 players – which doubled the dev’s previous most played game, Job Simulator, and helped Owlchemy Labs get acquired by Google this year for an undisclosed amount.
Even popular mobile games that have made the jump to VR have not found much success on Steam. Fruit Ninja has well over 100 million downloads on the App Store and Google Play, but Fruit Ninja VR’s all-time peak on Steam was only 85 players. And to date, the fruit-slasher has only been played slightly more than a quarter million times in VR since July 2016.
With such small player bases for VR games, it’s unlikely that the industry’s top publishers will be able to justify investing heavily in the development of exciting new VR experiences. If anything, we’ll just continue to see more VR editions released after gamers have already beat the original versions and the hype has died down. Which won’t help sell more VR units and is sad to think about; because as anyone who has ever tried the Rift or Vive can tell you, it’s an experience unlike anything else in gaming.