ACC player counts in review: October 2021

The days are running shorter. The temperature is going down. And, another month has run its course. November 1st marks another month done, meaning we will once again reflect on ACC’s player statistics (note: I started writing this on Nov. 1st).

Last month, I was cautiously optimistic as I expected the declining weather would put people back in their driver’s seat. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Instead of a slight growth, the numbers show consolidation.

A short TL;DR in advance:

• November 2021 was another month of consolidation despite not much happening;
• A strong core of players is keeping the player count very stable, which shows resilience;
• New content is finally on the horizon, but we need to wait until 2022 for its release.

In this series of articles I analyze the playercounts from Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) using data from both steamdb and steamcharts. I implement the data into my own spreadsheets, creating my own graphics and tables.

October 2021 player counts

September started strong initially, boosted by a remarkable and as of yet unexplained peak in the early part of the month. In the latter stages of the month, it had player counts running between 3500 and 4000. I tell you this to place the graph above in a bit of context.

October started with higher peaks, but also deeper valleys. The lowest peak concurrent player count was on Wednesday October 6th (3410), whereas the highest peak concurrent player count was achieved on Monday October 11th (4231). October had 7 days where the peak concurrent player count was above the 4K-line, the same as September had.

The trendline for October is also remarkably horizontal. October 1st to 15th had an average of 3796, while October 16th to 31st averaged out at 3803. This means the end of the month was a little bit better in terms of player counts, but this is slightly boosted by the Steam Halloween Sale which started October 30th (and will run until today, November 1st).

Taken on a week-to-week basis, the lowest average was scored on week 39 (3708), the strongest week was week 41 (3897). It is remarkable to see (figure 2) how stable the player count has been since week 34, with the lowest weekly average (week 39, 3708) being only 274 below the highest scoring week (week 36, 3982). This amounts to a variation of just 7.1% and indicates a strong core of regular players keeping the game alive.

This remarkable steadiness can also be seen when comparing this month’s numbers. The average player counts for October are exactly 3800 (or, well, 3799.8 but I’m rounding to even numbers for my own sanity’s sake). This is a slight decline of 39 as seen below in figure 3.

This decline of 39 is just a 1% negative change which is entirely negligible. Especially if you discount the extraordinary peak found in September.

What’s even more interesting is that the average count (non-concurrent) also stayed the same (1708, figure 5).

Looking ahead (November 2021 and beyond)

To summarize, there is not much happening on ACC’s player counts. However, there are were two other interesting points of note which could influence future numbers.

Firstly, a patch of about 600MB was released. In itself, it is fairly innocuous. However, it was not a numbered update (we are still on version 1.7.15 after its release). However, the accompanying note from Aris on one of the many ACC-related discords reveals a bit more:

Secondly, there was another much bigger bit of news: ACC will receive the 2022 Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2. It will release in 2022, but a specific date isn’t mentioned at the time of writing.

The car will release in partnership with Lamborghini’s “The Real Race”-eSports initiative. I have no doubt it will be accompanied by an eSports tournament, the details of which are yet unclear. This might have more ramifications for ACC in 2022 as a whole, which I will explore in a possible future blog post.

Next month will most likely not see any large developments in terms of player counts. Unless, of course, v1.8 actually releases next month. However, I personally suspect they might hold on to it until January 2022, for reasons I will detail in the other post I have yet to write. Stay tuned for that one!

Overview & Previous Articles

• October 2021 (avg. 3800, -1.0%)
• September 2021 (avg. 3839, + 7.8%)
• August 2021 (avg. 3560, +4.3%)
• July 2021 (avg. 3412, -20.6%)
• June 2021 (avg. 4296, -11.4%)
• May 2021 (avg. 4849, +3.0%)
• April 2021 (avg. 4709, +3.2%)
• March 2021 (avg. 4565, -6.2%)
• February 2021 (avg. 4867, +8.1%)
• January 2021 (avg. 4501, +12.0%)
• 2020 Round-up
• December 2020 (avg. 4018, -6.9%)
• November 2020 (avg. 4314, +34.0%)
• October 2020 (avg. 3220, +7.9%)
• September 2020 (avg. 2985, +11.1%)
• August 2020 (avg. 2685, -19.0%)
• July 2020 (avg. 3316, +9.8%)
• June 2020 (avg. 3021, -8.5%)
• May 2020 (avg. 3301, +15.4%)
• April 2020 (avg. 2860, +30.6%)
• March 2020 (avg. 2190, +1.4%)

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