Earlier this month, Boss Key Productions launchedLawBreakers, a brand new multiplayer FPS inspired by classic games likeUnreal Tournament. Reception to the game has been broadly positive, but just a few weeks after it made its debut, its player count on Steam is worryingly low.
Over the last 24 hours, the peak number of concurrent Steam users playingLawBreakersdropped to 364, down from a high of 2,500 when it was first released. To put that into some context, the peak number of players in the last 24 hours forDota 2, the most popular game on Steam, was 742,050. Looking at the FPS genre,Counter-Strike: Global Offensivegarnered a high of 570,173 players in the last 24 hours.
Of course, it’s not fair to compare those titles toLawBreakersdirectly.Dota 2is free-to-play, andGlobal Offensivehas built up its audience over a number of years. Still, it has to be said Boss Key Productions’attempt to compete with big hitters likeOverwatchisn’t exactly flourishing.
There’s a big decision to be made by the studio.LawBreakerswas originally announced as a free-to-play title, before this wasreversed to abandon free-to-playand adopt a more traditional pricing model. Now, it might be worth letting players get into the game without laying down any cash just to flesh out its online population.
A competitive multiplayer game needs a healthy player base to survive. The lower the player count goes, the more difficult it is for the experience to build any momentum, so it is at a crucial moment for the long-term lifespan ofLawBreakers. Of course, going free-to-play so soon is bound to upset its existing audience.
It’s a shame to seeLawBreakersfloundering, as it sets itself apart from the current crop of FPS games with throwback mechanics tempered by modern design sensibilities. Still, it just goes to show that it takes a lot more than a quality product to ensure that a game becomes a hit.
LawBreakersis available now for PC and PlayStation 4.
