ACC Playercounts in Review: May 2021

It’s June so that means it’s time to review the player numbers for the past month: May (2021). In last month’s post I wrote that I thought April would not be much different to March. March had a slight decline on because the game was still riding a high on the coattails of the British GT DLC release in february. Now that the numbers are in, let us see if I was right!

A short TL;DR in advance:

• May 2021 started astonishingly strong but good weather saw the numbers dip down for the final third of the month
• May 2021 is still the second strongest month ever, and the strongest unassisted (by a DLC-release) ever with 4849 average peak concurrent players!
• June’s free weekend saw a new record peak (6926) but the coming summer months will most likely mean a reduction of growth in the coming months.

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.

May 2021

In my review of April’s numbers, I wrote a prognosis for May. And I quote:

I personally think May’s average peak concurrent playercount could be anywhere between 4600 and 4900, which would mean more stabilization of the numbers. However, there’s two more things we should account for.

from: ACC PLAYERCOUNTS IN REVIEW: APRIL 2021

The two things I warned about were firstly the end of many lockdown measures keeping us locked up in our homes in the evenings, and secondly nice weather making the lure of going outside instead of racing greater.

Not to toot my own horn (well, actually, yes) the numbers for May reflect exactly what I thought in advance. Take a look at the graph below.

This graph, with the peak concurrent player counts for May 2021, shows the first part of the month starting exceptionally strong. Before the 19th of May, the daily peak was above 5K concurrent users a whopping 12 times (and only 7 times below). The highest peak concurrent was at May 17, with a peak of 5408 concurrent players which is the biggest ‘unassisted’* peak in the game’s history!

• With unassisted I mean a peak number without a DLC-release, steamsale or free weekend going on.

May’s first week averaged at 4716 players, the second at 4998, the third at 5075. The fourth week saw the start of the decline, but still averaged out at 4962. The fourth week, however, saw a clear dip with an average of ‘just’ 4433.

So, what happened that made the numbers dip down?

Well, the weather happened. At least for large parts of western Europe (i.e. Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc) saw a lot of sunshine in the final days of May. A lot of people, myself included, probably felt like going outside for a walk, bike ride or drinks instead of sweating inside behind the wheel.

Still, the average peak concurrent player count for May amounted to 4849 which is still its second best average month (behind February 2021 at 4867). This also means its the best unassisted month ever!

Because of the great start of the month and despite the eventual downturn in the latter part, the relative growth came down to 2.97%, or 140 in absolute numbers as detailed in the graphs below.

Looking ahead (June 2021)

Because I’m fairly late writing this, I already have a few spoilers for next months review. From Thursday June 3rd 1900 hours untill Monday June 7th 1900 hours, ACC ran a free weekend event. On Sunday, this meant a new peak concurrent record, an astonishing 6926 peak concurrent players!

Whether these new-found players stick around to boost the numbers for June remains to be seen, as the weather keeps improving. Myself, the past couple of times I was racing were harrowing because the temperature in my little room rose to over 30 degrees Celsius. At that point, my enthousiasm for racing wanes as I rather go outside for a refreshing bike ride or tennis match.

Undoubtedly, June’s numbers will come in strong again as the “new-ishness” of good weather resides and people will take up old habits. I do doubt we will see the numbers top this month until autumn starts. An average between 4700-4900 seems a realistic number as ACC consolidates its playerbase even further.

One downside to this month: we still don’t know what Kunos will do next for ACC. Yes, their publisher announced a 2024 target for AC2, but I highly doubt this will mean a direct stop to any work being done on ACC.

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

• April 2021
• March 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• 2020 Round-up
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• July 2020
• June 2020
• May 2020
• April 2020
• March 2020

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