ACC player counts in review: July 2022

July. Traditionally, the month with one of the lowest player activity of the year for Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC). Well, at least in 2021. In 2020, it was August – due to the release of the GT4 DLC in July 2020 temporarily boosting player activity. And now, at the tail end of June, we received the American Track Pack. Since it is now August 1st, we can now determine what the impact of said DLC has been on player activity.

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 both steamdb and steamcharts. I implement the data into my own spreadsheets, creating my own graphics and tables.

A short TL;DR in advance:

  • The summer’s high temperatures continue to dissuade people from playing ACC, as is to be expected
  • The American Track Pack DLC saw the average (non-peak) player count increase over June
  • This probably means that non-EU regions (possibly, North America) are playing more.

July 2022: comparing daily ACC player counts

Before we head into this month’s numbers, let’s first recap June 2022 to give it some context.

June 2022 saw a daily average of 4450 simracers playing ACC concurrently on peak hours. It had a few peaks below the 4K line, with the lowest number being 3737 on June 24th. However, on June 30th, the American Track Pack was released, which saw the highest peak at 5411 concurrent players.

As far as DLC releases go, this peak was rather low: the Challengers DLC release saw a peak of 6623, whereas the v1.8 release (accompanied by the BMW M4 GT3) had a peak of 7223 concurrent players.

This brings us to July’s numbers…

Fig. 1: Peak concurrent player counts

The DLC release kept the numbers above 4500 for seven days, before once again dipping below it. By July 12th, the peak concurrent player count reached below the 4K line and kept there for nearly the remainder of the month.

The month did end strongly, boosted by the Spa 24-hour race people flocked to the sim.

July’s lowest peak concurrent player count was on Tuesday, July 19th (3332). Incidentally, this was also the warmest day in large parts of Western Europe.

July’s highest peak concurrent player count was on July 4th, with 5219 players logging in simultaneously.

Figure 2: Daily peak concurrent player counts for 2022

The graph above shows all of the peak concurrent player counts for ACC in 2022. The July 19th negative peak is clearly the lowest peak concurrent player count achieved this year so far.

July 2022: comparing weekly ACC player counts

Figure 3 below compares this month’s weekly averages to last year’s. The red (2022) and grey (2021) lines show remarkable parallels to each other. This also fairly illustrates the year-on-year growth of ACC, which is somewhere between 20-30%.

Fig. 3: Weekly average concurrent player counts.

July’s first two weeks saw a boost through the DLC release, after which the numbers dipped below 4K. The fourth week went even further down to 3675, which was most likely caused by the record heat in large parts of Europe.

After this, the weekly average recovered to 4034, which is probably a fairly good estimate of where the game is now.

What this means for this month, you’ll read in the next chapter as seen below.

July 2022: comparing monthly ACC player counts

Fig. 4: All-time peak and average player counts

July’s average went down to 4122, from 4450. Interestingly, the average play count (i.e. the non-concurrent player count but total average) went up from 2004 to 2023. While this change does not represent a significant change, it does if you factor in the decline in concurrent player count.

This means that on average, people played ACC more in July than in June. However, they did so during non-peak hours. This could be due to the game becoming more popular in areas that don’t see much activity during peak hours, i.e. areas in different time zones.

Such as Australia. Or North America. Seems likely the American Track Pack may have caused this.

Fig. 5: Relative growth since January 2020
Fig. 6: Absolute growth since January 2020

In the figures above you can see how these numbers in peak concurrent player count relate to the previous months, both in relative and in absolute terms.

Relatively speaking, the numbers declined by 7.37%. Absolutely, we’re speaking of a decline of 328 average peak concurrent players. This was to be expected, but remember that this is only for peak hours. As said before, the average play time actually increased, which is quite a positive thing to keep in mind when interpreting these numbers!

Looking forward to August 2022 and beyond

This is it for the recap of July 2022. A rather unremarkable one at that, but nothing I did not expect. Although…

One remarkable thing did happen. And it has to do with what I wrote in last month’s review;

There are now officially no more DLCs in the works. Would this new pack be the final release for ACC? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect at least one more DLC pack could be in the works.

June 2022 player counts in review

My question has been answered! At least two new DLC packs have been announced. Firstly, we got word that a future 2023 update will include at least three new-for 2023 cars, the Ferrari 296 GT3, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2, and the new Porsche 911 GT3 R 992.

Secondly, a GT2 DLC has been announced, bringing at least 7 new cars to the roster. Among which is the beautiful Maserati MC20 GT2.

Unfortunately, there is no further info available at the time of writing. I’d love to see Kunos add some more tracks as well, and I am hopeful they will include some with the 2023 update. Valencia, Magny Cours, and Hockenheim have made their way unto the GT World Challenge calendar, but not into ACC.

As far as player numbers go: August will not be much different than July. We might see a consolidation of the current numbers, meaning that an average of 3900-4100 is to be expected as the final few weeks of July showed.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Overview & Previous Articles

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