Amazon’s breakout MMORPG New World lost over 500 thousand players in a single month, according to the Steam Charts of the game. After reaching a total of 913,027 simultaneous players near launch, on October 3, the game has experienced a constant drop in this number, with recent daily totals under 350 thousand players.
While these are still impressive numbers, the continuous decline also indicates New World has some trouble keeping the community engaged, which might prove to be a problem in the future.
As an MMORPG, New World is highly dependent on an active online community. Contrary to single-player games, an MMORPG only has meaning when players can interact with one another to cooperate and beat more demanding challenges or even challenge each other for combat. While a drop in the number of players is expected for any MMO after launch, losing 500 thousand players is still a massive blow for New World, as it shows Amazon needs to keep offering new endgame content to give veterans players something to do.
Released last September 28, New World was praised by players for its buy-to-play business model, in which players get full access to the game with a single-time purchase instead of paying up a monthly subscription. In addition, to finance future expansions, New World also offers microtransaction in-game. However, since these microtransactions are only related to cosmetic items, the game’s progression is not affected by putting some extra dollars into New World.
Although New World experienced a successful launch, the game has been plagued by bugs and issues that push away some players. Among the biggest complaints was the auto-ban system that could be abused by different factions to stop high-level players from taking part in PvP events.
Amazon denies an auto-ban is in place, but there’s enough evidence to support that an automated system was in place at least during the first weeks after New World’s launch. Negative reviews on New World’s Steam Page also underline how players are faced with connectivity issues, how Amazon is slow to fix game-breaking bugs, and how the game lacks things to do for players who are already high-level.
While MMORPGs are expected to drop content frequently, New World is still polishing its core gameplay experience. If Amazon doesn’t fix the situation fast, they might have trouble keeping the player base they still have.