ACC player counts in review: January 2023

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We’ve entered February, which means the first month of 2023 has been completed. This also means there is a fresh month’s worth of player data for me to go through in regard to Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC). Will 2023 be a fresh start for the waning player counts, which for the first time showed a declining year-on-year growth at the back end of 2022 (compared to 2021)?

In this series of articles – I’ve been doing this since March 2020 – I analyze the playercounts from Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) using data from steamdb. I implement the data into my own spreadsheets, creating my own graphics and tables.

A short TL;DR in advance:

  • January proved that December ’22 was not the beginning of a trend but rather an exception;
  • Player activity rose by nearly 20%, the biggest relative and absolute growth the game has seen since November 2020;
  • Players are getting hungrier for new content, but are still content with the current offering or so it seems.

January 2023: comparing daily ACC player counts

Before we do dive into January’s numbers, let’s quickly recap where we left off in December (2022), which TL;DR is posted below;

  • Infinite growth does not exist, and it might look as if ACC has hit its limit for growth
  • Some small victories have to be celebrated, but we are now on a year-on-year decline in player activity
  • Christmas, as always, put a further dent in the otherwise stagnating player activity.

December 2022’s average peak player count was 4098, a lot less than December 2021’s average of 4595 which led me to proclaim that the end of growth was reached, and we would be looking at the stagnation of ACC’s player activity in the near future. And not necessarily a decline.

If this proclamation were to be right, January 2023’s player activity would have to reach similar levels to January 2022’s average player activity. This is quite a tall order, as January 2022 was the second-best month in terms of player activity for ACC, ever, with an average peak player count of 5391.

So, now, let us see what the past 31 days have brought us!

Fig. 1: Peak concurrent (red) and average (grey) player counts

In short: January 2023 was a very good month for ACC. Not amazing, but very good.

The month started off shaky, with the New Year’s still putting a damper on peak and average activity. While the average was not as low, keep in mind that New Year’s was on a weekend, which normally sees a peak in average activity as seen in every other week of the month.

After that first day of the year, the normal routine continued. There are 4 peaks in the concurrent player count, each on a Sunday. With the last Sunday (29th) achieving the highest of this month’s concurrent activity, 5790. And, if we disregard the outlier on January 1st, the lowest peak concurrent was 4539 on Thursday 19th.

This number, 4539, would’ve been the 4th best day for ACC in December 2022. It’s crazy how fast things can change.

The variance between the highest and lowest peak concurrent is 1251, or 21.6% of the total. This is a higher variance than since I started keeping count of this stat (excluding December, due to the holidays), but in relative terms, it is actually less.

  • September: 1172 (27.8%)
  • October: 1113 (24.9%)
  • November: 1104 (24.8%)
  • December: 1669 (40.7%)

A lower variance of 21.6%, as compared to the variance values of past months in the list above, means that ACC’s player activity has become more consistent, which is a good thing long term.

January 2023: comparing weekly ACC player counts

Fig. 2: Weekly average concurrent player counts.

January had 5 weeks to take averages from;

  • Dec 26 – Jan 1: peak 4071, average 2168
  • Jan 2 – Jan 8: peak 4790, average 2414
  • Jan 9 – Jan 15: peak 4835, average 2209
  • Jan 16 – Jan 22: peak 4970, average 2279
  • Jan 23 – Jan 29: peak 5113, average 2381

The first peak average of the week 4071 was largely affected by New Year’s. The average player count did not deviate as much. This is most likely due to the holidays meaning time off school and/or work. This is further exemplified by the average (non-peak) of the 2nd week, which is the highest of the month largely due to more people playing on weekdays than normal.

After that first week, the weekly peak averages started climbing with roughly 100 players per week. And, excluding the second week, the average player count showed similar growth. Culminating in an average peak concurrent of 5113 in week 5. We hadn’t had a weekly average over 5K since May 2022, showing that ACC is on the way back.

January 2023: comparing monthly ACC player counts

And this brings us to the total average for this month’s player statistics. And, while it is not setting any immediate records, it is nice to see that December 2022 for now seems to be an exception rather than a trend.

Fig. 3: All-time peak and average player counts

With January 2023 reaching an average of 4913 concurrent players (and a total average of 2317), this is the 5th most played month ACC has ever had, behind January, February, April and May of 2022. Better than anything achieved in 2021.

And, in terms of both relative (+19.9%) and absolute (+815) growth, the month-on-month growth is the biggest since November 2020, as can be seen in figures 4 and 5 below.

Fig. 4: Relative growth since January 2020
Fig. 5: Absolute growth since January 2020

Year-on-year, this still means a decline of 478 players, or a decline of 8.9%. Which is slightly less than the year-on-year decline for December 2022 compared to December 2021, which had a decline of 497 players, or 10.8%.

One month ago I said this year-on-year gap would most likely widen for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, I’m wrong – but not by much.

Looking forward to next month: February 2023

One month ago, I wrote I would be doing a full year in review, comparing 2022 to previous years. A perceptive reader would have noticed that I haven’t published it yet. Unfortunately, I did not find enough time to write said article, despite dedicating a number of nights’ worth of writing towards it. I have been receiving too many commissions for custom liveries to be able to dedicate enough time to the article to finish it in a timely manner. But I promise – it’s still coming. Just a bit tardy.

And my tardiness would fit in rather nicely with Kunos’. They’ve announced the new-for-2023 GT3 cars and a GT2 pack as upcoming DLC, but no further word has been heard on them yet.

What does this have to do with February? Well, this second month of the year has historically been a month in which Kunos releases DLC. The Intercontinental GT DLC pack released February 4th 2020, and the British GT pack released on February 10th, 2021. The only outlier is 2022, when the Challengers Pack released on March 23rd.

Could we be seeing a DLC release this month? Or at least a hint towards a possible release date?

And that’s a wrap for December, and equally a wrap for 2022. Normally, I would take this space to look forward to the next month. However, I will keep my thoughts on the future of ACC for the annual yearly round-up. Keep an eye out on this page to stay up to date.

What are your thoughts on the future? Let me know in the comments below!

Overview & Previous Articles

2023

  • January 2022 (avg. 4913, +19.89%)

2022

2021

2020

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