Overwatch has more than 40 million players

Overwatch has achieved an impressive feat: the game now has more than 40 million players, game director Jeff Kaplan revealed in a developer update today.

[Kribwalker]

Wow, 2 years later and still going strong. Exactly why some people have said MP games have been making a bigger impact then single player games. Not one single player game has even come close to numbers like this, and it’s 2 years later and still going strong. Shows you what can happen with the right formula, and a stream of continuous free content.

[Gazondaily]

No doubt. Way longer engagement as well.

Love both but MP is the one for me.

[Ricegum]

Luckily Sony offer a good amount of both.

[Gazondaily]

^^True but it's not their strength. Not as far as their first party content is concerned anyway .

[gangsta_red]

Seriously, pretty sure this is exactly what was explained with MP games. And how these games have lasting legs and make back more than what it cost for development.

I seriously love Overwatch as it's one of the most fun games I have played this gen.

[Kribwalker]

the special events they put on are pretty special too. I’ll jump in it every once in awhile but my kid loves that game and is on all the time. His generation seems to hop back and forth between this, ark, minecraft fortnite and whatever other big MP game is out they can play with their friends.

[rainslacker]

And how does that translate to SP games having less impact than in the past?

Isn't the more accurate way to describe it that SP games have less chance to sell as a popular MP game? Saying impact seems to imply that fewer people want SP games, yet SP games are still selling well, and even selling better than last gen for quite a few titles....probably because there is less glut in the market like last gen.

Sure, this is exactly what was MEANT by what Spencer said, but it wasn't exactly explained properly by him. His implication was clear, he just didn't want to seem like a complete corporate tool when telling people that MS doesn't care except where they can monetize the crap out of people.

I guess people can enjoy their GaaS future. I'll enjoy my SP games from the publishers that decide to build a product that I actually want to play. I guess all last gen where we all complained about MT and DLC didn't mean much because GaaS is so obviously different.

[gangsta_red]

@rainslacker
They have less impact than in the past because no SP game can last this long and still do this amount of business.

I'm pretty sure that is more than obvious at this point.

"Saying impact seems to imply that fewer people want SP games, "

No, it only seems to imply to you as you're the only one that wants to see it this way.

"...but it wasn't exactly explained properly by him.."

Actually it was explained extremely well but as usual fanboys went crazy, took it to imply something else, left half quotes or just decided to jump in the many articles that also capitalized on the same opportunity to provide *clickbait* to feed the mass hysteria.

But as I, Krib and others constantly left the full quotes from the interview, it was exactly what was explained here and showed what devs are trying achieve with MP games last gen and this gen.

"I'll enjoy my SP games from the publishers that..."

Good, please enjoy your SP games while you pay a yearly subscription for online options, makes total sense. And keep thinking that GaaS is the boogyman that is casting a dark Shadow over SP games when obvious it is not.

As I said before it's funny to see people only worry about the worse aspects of GaaS but never the benefits of a developer continuesly supporting a game for years with content that their user base will enjoy.

[rainslacker]

What I'm getting at is that MP games have more impact than SP games when successful. That hasn't lessened the impact of SP games at all though. If anything, SP games are selling better than they used to....probably because there aren't as many high profile one's competing in the market anymore.

Since SP games haven't actually lost their impact, or had it lessened, it renders the rest of Spencers comment moot, because he's trying to justify a GaaS paradigm by downplaying SP games as if they somehow sell less than before, or have less demand. Yet, given how many high profile SP games have sold well, better than most in the past, it seems that SP games do not have less impact....but more.

Again, maybe they don't have as much impact as a successful MP game, but that isn't what Spencer said, nor what he was implying.

Fanboy or not, I'm still waiting on an explanation of how SP games somehow have less impact than they used to, or if the impact is simply in comparison to how much impact MP games can have. I'd like a response that doesn't just dismiss my argument by calling me a fan boy, because I feel I'm not off the mark.

[Gaming_1st]

Like how they count multiple accounts to push their numbers.

[PapaBop]

Plus things like free play weekends. It's misleading and honestly expected better from Jeff.

[gangsta_red]

They do? Where do they state this?

[PapaBop]

GTA 5, that sold stupid amounts before GTA Online even released. 40m players is a deceptive statistic also, that isn't 40m copies sold and on consoles where smurfing is a big problem, anybody can easily make a brand new account. Not to take anything away from Overwatch as I love it but don't get caught up on fancy schmancy big numbers.

[Kribwalker]

GTA online released 2 weeks after it launched, and it was known it was gonna be released, so i don’t know what you’re talking about

[PapaBop]

It broke how many sales records in those two weeks? Or did everyone just buy it to wait for GTA:O? It sold over 11m copies in the first 24 hours alone.

[rainslacker]

GTA has always been a huge seller. Past titles sold extremely well. In the tens of millions. MP wasn't the driving force in GTA5's sales, although I'd imagine it has a lot to do with it's currently still selling well. Online has been good at keeping people invested in the game though.

[rainslacker]

MP games doing well doesn't mean that SP games don't have as much impact as they used to. SP games actually sell just as well or better than they used to, so saying that SP games have LESS impact than before is just wrong. SP games may not have as much impact(or sales if we want to use the term that Spencer meant), compared to a popular MP game, but I'm sure we could list a bunch of MP games which didn't sell as much as some of the popular SP games. Kind of like GTA....which sold more than any MS game before it ever had MP.

The more proper thing to say is that SP games have less chance to have the same sales as MP games. More properly, MS should say, "our games don't have the impact they used to, so we're going to extrapolate that across the board and put down anything that has the potential to have our competition sell consoles. Oh, but we have minecraft, which became popular before we brought it so that has more impact that SP games so we're going to tack on needless Live sign in requirements to boost our numbers".

Not quite as pithy I admit, but at least more accurate.

[Gazondaily]

He should have said:

"SP games don't have the kind of impact that they did before with the exception of a few games. The others well, you'll hear the word 'niche' regularly blurted out for good reason."

Not quite as diplomatic as his actual comment I admit but at least it's hammers home the completely factual nature of his statement, not that that would prevent a certain contingent from completely misconstruing what he said.

[SuperSonic91]

This game's anime visual style helped Fornite

[slate91]

This gen would have been a total bust for me if it wasn't for Overwatch

[littletad]

I've enjoyed every minute of it, and put 350 or so hours on both versions xbox/ps4. Somehow I've still managed to platinum Nioh, Horizon, and even God of War and continuing to do so for Origins and Witcher 3 on xbox. I would say that overwatch made me love video games again (like the ps2 era), along with the single player experiences like Last of Us.

[Kumakai]

That’s more than any exclusive on any platform and illustrates why 3rd party multiplats are just as important as exclusives and a successful console should have a healthy balance of both.

[MAULxx]

I don't buy or play MP focused games. Just not my thing.