Flight still kicking

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Some interesting info from another post:

 

Larry Hryb's list for most played GFWL titles:

 

1. GTA IV, no surprise

 

2. Age of Empires, no surprise

 

3. Flight, still kicking after 4 weeks on the Web

and places above...

 

4. Batman: Arkham City

 

These are based on numbers of unique players using the game. At this point pronouncements that flight is dying a horrible death due to (place talking point here) still seem quite premature, which should be great news.

 

Anecdotal evidence of this is that I am now seeing more and more planes creeping onto the other islands, meaning that not only are the warbirds selling, but that people are being drawn in to buy the adventure pack as well.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Here is the latest list from Major Nelson, Larry Hryb's gamertag. Larry is the Director of Programming for the Microsoft XBox Live network, which includes all Games for Windows Live (GFWL) titles.

 

Larry posts the list of most played games, by unique users, every week.

 

Perhaps not everybody here follows the fate of Flight, so this might give you an idea.

 

At release, Flight was immediately the second most-played game on the Live network, after GTA IV (no surprise there.) It remained second for a couple of weeks.

 

In its third week after release, it descended to third place, Age of Empires and GTA IV were above.

 

In its fifth week, it descended to fifth place. And the latest Major Nelson list shows that Flight, in its seventh week after release, climbed back up to third place, below Age of Empires and GTA IV once again.

 

So, it seems the game is doing surprisingly well. And those are just the users on the Live network, the Steam network must now also be added.

 

I imagine that Alaska will push Flight all the way to the top.

 

For the week of April 9th to 15th:

1. Age of Empires Online
   
2. GTA IV
   
3. Microsoft Flight
   
4. Gotham City Impostors
   
5. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition
   
6. Batman Arkham City
   
7. F1 2011
   
8. DiRT 3
   
9. Resident Evil 5
   
10. Fallout 3
    

 

Best regards.

Luis

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Thanks for the additional info! I am told the Steam figures are accessible as well, but cant quite figure out how to find it.

[HowardHughes 3]

Make any of the other games on that list free and Flight will fall off the radar.

 

It's the unfortunate (or fortunate IMO) truth. Go on any of the Steam boards etc and see just how little interest people have in Flight. Of course it'll have lots of play-time for the few few months. You download it even if you don't wknow what it is.

[vonBobo 0]

im interested to know if alaska will have a free to play area.

[n4gix 4,947]

And those are just the users on the Live network, the Steam network must now also be added.

 

Luis, everyone, including the Steam folks must log in through the LIVE network, so those stats already include all Flight users... :Thinking:

[HiFlyer 9,360]

I was thinking about patterns. People certainly are buying the adventure pack, but at this point it must be moderately low as a proportion to players on the main island.

 

But here is a social note: when I log in and find many many people on the big island, I used to just assume it was simply a bunch of free players, and I would join the group and more often than not restrict myself to the main island as well. Lately though, I have discovered that I can usually quickly disabuse myself of that notion by moving my plane to another island and becoming talkative in chat; Shortly thereafter, planes begin migrating to the other islands, and often in areas around where I am flying.

 

It makes me wonder if some unspoken social instinct tends to crowd players together in clumps (those clumps being more obvious in the free areas) and thus present at least a partially misleading picture to the casual eye of the true numbers of DLC pack purchases.

 

All pure speculation and anecdotal as well, but MS would be the ones with the true numbers, and they claim to be pleased..........

[staib 1]

I think you might have something there... If I'm feeling social I will sometimes drop back from a mission on the smaller islands to fly around with people on the bigger one. It's rare that I see 'mean' flyers there, though I have been crashed into a handful of times. Possibly deliberately, but sometimes I suspect by mistake, given their rudimentary flying skills and subsequent apologies...

 

I read comments about the 'sterile' nature of Flight, and wonder if those flyers have tried flying around and chatting with other people - sure beats chatting up AI traffic.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Thanks very much, Bill, for the correction. I learn something every day. :Peace:

 

Best regards.

Luis

[AzureWX 0]

Some more fun data: Flight's Hawaii Starter Bundle is currently the #4 bestseller in the Sim genre on Steam (which includes a surprisingly wide array of games that the average Flight Sim player might not consider "simulators").

 

http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Simulation/