ACC player counts in review: October 2022

A new month has started. This means that it is time to, once again, answer that recurring question: how many players (have) play(ed) Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC)? If you’re looking for the answer to that question (at least for October 2022), you’ve clicked the right link. Did the player activity increase over September 2022? And how about compared to October 2021 (year-on-year growth)? Let’s find out, shall we?

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:

• ACC traditionally sees the player count rise toward the end of the year, and October 2022 is no different
• An increase to an average of 4469 (+6.2%), but not much growth within the month itself
• Year-on-year growth shows a health +17.6, both in average peak concurrent and average player count.

October 2022: comparing daily ACC player counts

Before we dive into October’s numbers and give meaning to those numbers, it’s essential to know what ACC’s player activity has been doing before the start of the month. So, let us quickly recap September (2022) (click the link to read the full article);

• The average peak player count in September 2022 was 4208, an 8% increase over August 2022.
• The trendline from September started at about 4000 and ended at about 4400.
• September’s lowest peak was 3684, and its highest was 4856 (an 1172 variance).

All right, did you get that? Cool! Now we can move on to the meat of this ‘player counts in review’ and absolutely geek out on (and ascribe way too much meaning to) the numbers generated in October 2022!

The graph above (figure 1) plots out October 2022’s daily peak player counts. With the exception of Friday 28th, all peak player counts remain above the 4K barrier. That day’s 3926 marks the lowest player activity for October, which is still 242 concurrent players higher than September’s lowest, or 6.57% higher.

October also had 2 scores peeking above (pun intended) the 5K-line: Sunday 9th and Monday 24th. Sunday 9th’s peak of 5039 marked the highest peak for October 2022 – 183 higher than in September (or +3.77%).

The variance (the difference between the highest and lowest peak) for October is therefore 1113, which is only slightly less than September’s 1172 (5.03% less). However, relatively speaking (i.e. accounting for monthly average player counts) the change is relative variance is a decrease of 10.58%, making October’s player activity a lot less volatile compared to September’s.

This lack of volatility also shows when putting this month’s numbers against those of 2022 as a whole. The strong start of the year was followed by a relatively low-scoring period right before the two DLC releases sent player activity straight up. After normalizing and the annual summer dip, the numbers were recovering. However, this recovery seems to have stagnated in October 2022 as can be seen in figure 2.

This stagnation can also be seen in the trendline in figure 1, which is fairly horizontal on the 4500 line.

October 2022: comparing weekly ACC player counts

Technically, October had 5 weeks. However, its first ‘week’ was only the weekend of October 1st-2nd. So I’m not fully counting the average of 4129 towards October’s numbers.

However, following said 4129 average, the other weeks showed a lot higher, 4458, 4548, 4598 and lastly 4390. Which is, like the daily peak numbers, remarkably stable.

October 2022: comparing monthly ACC player counts

And now for the monthly numbers – the monthly average for October reached an average of 4469. Like last month, another month of growth albeit a little less so. Whereas September saw a growth of 313 average players (+8.0%), October added ‘only’ 261 players (+6.2%) to the mix. Not too shabby.

Compared to October 2021, which had an average peak concurrent player count of 3800, there is a year-on-year growth of 669 peak concurrent players or an increase of 17.6%.

Interestingly, the total average (i.e. non-concurrent) rose from 1707 in October 2021 to 2008 in October 2022. Which is, if you do the math, also an increase of exactly 17.6%.

This indicates that people are still playing in the same patterns as they did last year. However, this also indicates that the GT Americas DLC pack did little to create a lasting impact on the American simracing scene. At least – from the data available to me.

Looking forward to November 2022 and beyond

So that was October. All-in-all, a pretty good month for ACC. Last year, October was immediately followed by a storming November 2021 which saw peak activity rise by 10%, not once but twice as December 2021 had a 9% increase. Whereas the third month after – January 2022 – had a whopping 17% increase.

It seems unlikely that ACC will be able to top the late fall/early winter it had in 2021/2022 in terms of growth. However, it seems likely that we can at least repeat the same absolute numbers, if not improve on them as we are already nearly 20% above last year’s numbers. But, in order to keep that 20% lead, November 2022 should have an average peak concurrent player count of over 5000.

Which I think is unlikely to happen, unless another surprise DLC/content drops like how Imola was released in late 2020 and the BMW M4 GT3 similarly in late 2021.

So, uh…

Ferrari 296 GT3 anyone?

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

Overview & Previous Articles

2022

• September 2022 (avg. 4208, +8.04%)
• August 2022 (avg. 3895, -5.51%)
• July 2022 (avg. 4122, -7.37%)
• June 2022 (avg. 4450, -13.79%)
• May 2022 (avg. 5168, -4.65%)
• April 2022 (avg. 5420, +11.98%)
• March 2022 (avg. 4840, -5.12%)
• February 2022 (avg. 5101, -5.4%)
• January 2022 (avg. 5391, +17.2%)

2021

• 2021 Round-up
• December 2021 (avg. 4595, +9.1%)
• November 2021 (avg. 4212, +10.8%)
• 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

• 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%)

SOCIALS

If you want to stay on top of my latest endeavors, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram. I also occasionally post videos on my youtube-channel if I find the time to do so.