ACC Playercounts in Review: July 2021

It’s already August. We are half way into 2021. Let that sink in for a bit. Not only has half a year gone by already, it also means that it’s time to review the player numbers for the past month: July (2021).

In short: July was another bad month. June saw a decline of 11.4%. I predicted the average concurrent player count to dip below the 4K line in last month’s post. Being right on this count doesn’t feel good. Not at all. If you want to know why, read the TL;DR or the full number analysis below.

A short TL;DR in advance:

  • July 2021 had the biggest decline in player counts, with a decrease of 20.58% (previous highest decline: August 2020 with 19.03%
  • The lowest concurrent player count for July 2021 (2767 on the 23rd) is the lowest since 16 October 2020 (2751).
  • Kunos’ CEO announced they will not be dropping support for ACC any time soon, and said we will hear about what’s next “soon”.

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.

June 2021 playercounts

Peak concurrent playercounts for July.

The end of June saw regular peak concurrent player counts below 4K, with occasional peaks below it. Due to a free weekend at the start of June, it still had an average peak of 4296 concurrent players.

Well, July didn’t have that luxury, unfortunately. July 1st started off just above 4K, but quickly dipped below it. It would become a sign of things to come, as the concurrent player count went down even further – eventually even dipping down the 3K line.

The highest concurrent playercount was achieved on Monday July 5th (4270), whereas the lowest was on Friday July 23rd (2767). I had to do a bit of digging, but that is the lowest number we had since October of last year.

While the graph above is already showing the steady decline for this month, the graph below (which shows the weekly averages) creates even more context for said decline.

Weekly average concurrent playercounts.

The decline started in week 20 (4962). This was temporarily countered by the free weekend creating a large spike, but the numbers keep (on average) steadily declining after that.

The final (full) week of July had an average of 3062. Numbers we haven’t seen since October 2020, which had similar numbers (3054, 3078, 3046 and 3119) before the 2020 DLC dropped in November and ACC’s player numbers started to rise rapidly.

All time peak and average player counts

Talking of October 2020, lets put the eventual average for July (3412) in larger context. The rapid decline in player activity is clearly visible. Not only is the average peak concurrent player count (which measures the highest number of players playing simultaneously) going down, the average player count (the dotted line, which shows the average number of people playing at all times, not just peaks) is now going down too.

Last month this average number did not go down as much as the peak concurrent player count. I theorized this might have to do with other regions (such as Australia and North America, which have different peak hours than Europe) seeing increased activity. This month, however, the decline on average playercount is similar (-18.6%) to the peak concurrent playercount (-20.6%, as seen below).

Relative growth since January 2020

This decline of over 20% marks the biggest drop in player percentage since I started doing these writeups. Since I have a few more numbers behind the scenes, I can say this is the fourth biggest drop ever:

  • 3rd biggest drop: February 2019; -33%. During Early Access (but was followed by a 120% rise a month after when they fixed multiplayer);
  • 2nd biggest drop: July 2019; -42%. This was because V1 (full release) released late May boosting June’s numbers.
  • 1st biggest drop: October 2018; -45%. The first full month after the first early access release, when there was just 1 car and 1 track.

However, in terms of absolute numbers, this is in fact the biggest drop ever. I even had to change the Y-axis on the graph below to accomodate this big drop of 884.

Absolute growth since January 2020

Looking ahead (August 2021 and beyond)

Doing these write-ups when the numbers are booming is fun. However, when they are as depressing as this month’s it is very much the opposite.

Even though I expected the number to go down, I also predicted a stabilization at ~3500-3700. The average of 3412 beat even my worst estimate. Furthermore, the final few weeks made me suspect the decline is far from over. If I had to give another estimate for next months report, 2800-3000 would be my best bet.

Another saddening conclusion I need to draw is that there haven’t been any updates to the game this month, with v1.7.12 having been released June 29th. I hope this is due to the guys at Kunos being on holiday, rather than working on AC2.

On that topic, there is a glimmer of hope. In an interview with Overtake.GG, Marco Massarutto (CEO of Kunos) was asked if there was anything he’d like to share with the community. His response:

Well, what I can say is that we are receiving a lot of questions recently about the future of the Assetto Corsa franchise or Assetto Corsa Competizione, and today I’m glad to say that our aim is to continue to support actively Competizione and also for the future, so you can expect to have more news and content soon for this part of the Assetto Corsa franchise.

Marco Massarutto, Kunos Simulazione

Even though I’ve been saying it for a long time, this is the first direct evidence that there will be new content on the way for ACC. Let this be the glimmer of hope I conclude this round up with!

I hope to see you again next month for another Playercount in Review (with hopefully better numbers)!

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8 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    So now look on the stats for older Assetto Corsa Version unfortunately ACC is getting boring after some time no Nurb. Ring track to copy and survive 24h like in real live, no Le Mans track and no Daytona Road Course srry but this is the truth….

  1. November 3, 2021

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  2. May 2, 2022

    […] July 2021 (avg. 3412, -20.6%) […]

  3. August 1, 2022

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    […] July 2021 (avg. 3412, -20.6%) […]

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    […] July 2021 (avg. 3412, -20.6%) […]

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