What’s supposed to be a year-end blockbuster release did not go according to plan for EA. With a myriad of reported bugs, balancing issues and other complaints, it didn’t take long for gamers to step away from the recently launched Battlefield 2042, and move over to something that’s a bit more… productive.
Claiming the top spot for the most active users on Steam, just a step ahead of EA’s high profile multiplayer shooter, is Giants Software’s latest game: Farming Simulator 2022. No, really.
This is based on the weekly global top sellers list by SteamDB, a website that keeps track of all things Steam – from player counts, game updates, sales, and so on. As mentioned earlier, the highest selling game as of 28 November 2021 is currently Farming Simulator 22, which drastically climbed to first place after ranking at number 10 in last week’s list. Following it is EA’s Battlefield 2042 (also ranked number 2 during the week prior), with Cyberpunk 2077 at third place, Red Dead Redemption at fourth, and Valve Index VR Kit at fifth.
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As for player count, Farming Simulator 22 records a 24-hour peak of 94,744 users on Steam, with an all-time peak of 105,636 throughout seven days. EA’s shooter, on the other hand, is shown to have a 24-hour peak of 52,524 players, and an all-time peak of 105,397 throughout a span of ten days. For the number of active users currently online at the time of writing this article; Battlefield 2042 is actually leading at 21,847 players, while Giant Software’s title only has 21,289.
Farming Simulator 2022’s triumph over Battlefield 2042 may be somewhat baffling for some, especially with those unfamiliar with the former. Despite being part of the whole “simulator” niche (the more serious ones, not the sillier releases such as Goat Simulator), Giant Software’s series is actually well received by gamers. In fact, its predecessor, Farming Simulator 2019 has sold over two million copies on Steam and received favourable reviews from critics and players alike. The same can be said for its successor, which has garnered over 7,000 “Very Positive” reviews since its launch on 22 November 2022.
This isn’t the first time a high profile “AAA” title such as Battlefield has seen a dip in player base and sales. Last year, CD Projekt Red’s highly anticipated first-person shooter Cyberpunk 2077 also lost a significant number of users due to a disastrous launch on various platforms, including Steam.
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