Valve's Artifact hits new player low, loses 97% players in under 2 months

After launching on November 28th, 2018, Valve’s latest game Artifact saw a rapidly dwindling player base within only a few weeks. However, Artifact hit a new low this morning, according to SteamCharts – at midnight earlier today the game reportedly had its lowest ever player count.

[otakuapologist]

i would've liked more information on what's wrong with the game. i don't play this game personally but i'm curious what problems might be affecting things.

[lucifon]

Appreciate the feedback, I've added a snippet in that might help explain. There's numerous factors at play here I think really that all contribute, but some of the major ones include the $20/£16 entry fee (when the market is full of F2P competition), monetization approach to the game revolving around a player-driven market economy which can cause a real 'Pay to win' feel, and the matches are pretty long compared to other CCGs leading to drawn out games. Of course there's a whole bunch of other things that may or may not be contributing more, but those are the ones that stand out to me.

[TekoIie]

It's also got a very different playable than other card games that isn't immediately familiar. You've got 3 boards (lanes) to play on at once and are managing your cards and heroes between them. It's taken some cues from mtg but has strayed further from it than most card games.

The monetization system isn't really bad but it's definitely itself not as beginner friendly as other CCG's.

[beulahland]

Digital card games, pfff.