‘This Is Big Unemployed Behaviour’: Overwatch Dev Roasts SteamDB Fanatics

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A growing trend in hardcore gaming communities revolves around Steam concurrent player numbers.

Because it’s one of the few ways to publicly gauge how well a game is doing, there’s been growing focus on these measurements lately.

As a gamer, I’ve seen a lot of talk about player counts – basically, how many people are playing a game right now on one system. It seems simple, just checking who’s online, but it’s often used to decide if a game is doing well or not. It’s a quick way to get a feel for how popular something is, even if it doesn’t tell the whole story.

What defines a successful game often varies from one community to another. For instance, a single-player game might be considered successful with around 20,000 players playing at the same time, but a multiplayer game might need 80,000 concurrent players to achieve the same status.

As a fan, it’s frustrating because we only get sales numbers for some platforms. We never see the full picture of how a game is really doing when it’s released on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch all at once. It’s hard to know just how popular it is!

Overwatch developer Dylan Snyder has addressed a new trend called ‘Marathon Concurrent Player Watching,’ where people watch others play the game for extended periods.

He commented on X (formerly Twitter) that a claim about the game Marathon losing half its players since launch was “big unemployed, maidenless behaviour.” In reality, the game’s player numbers have remained fairly stable.

One player pointed out that the peak number of concurrent players during the Marathon beta (88,000) was much lower than during the Server Slam (140,000). However, the Server Slam was a free trial open to everyone, whereas the full game costs $40 to purchase.

We definitely look at the number of players on Steam to gauge how well a game is doing, but it’s important to remember this is just one piece of the puzzle. It only shows activity on a single platform at a specific point in time.

It’s worth considering how much information game developers share with us. It would be really helpful to understand in more detail how players are actually using and enjoying their games.

Having a lot of players online at the same time can be good for promoting a game, but it can backfire if the game isn’t successful. Concord, for example, was destined to fail, and highlighting its player numbers – even though they were only in the hundreds – just drew more attention to its problems.

We believe this data has potential, but it’s important to interpret it carefully. A significant piece of the puzzle is missing – we don’t know how many players are on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, and that’s crucial for a game released on multiple platforms.

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2026-03-11 00:07