DOTA 2 players slump to lowest level in three years as PUBG cannibalises game time

The meteoric success of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is not happening in isolation – several games are suffering player declines in its wake.

Chief among them seems to be Valve’s DOTA 2 which, as spotted by Game Debate, recently saw active players dip to its lowest number since 2014, falling to 214,155. That’s still good enough to keep the game in second spot, but the figure is increasingly looking dwarfed next to PUBG, which just this past weekend saw concurrent players pass the 1.5m mark.

DOTA 2 peaked in March 2016 when concurrent players reached 1.29m. That stood as Steam’s all-time record until it was recently claimed by PUBG. Since then it has still averaged over 600k concurrent players.

The popular MOBA is not the only title suffering falls, however. Fellow Valve hit Counter Strike: Global Offensive has seen overall declines for four of the last seven months. Average player numbers have dropped from 710k in April to below 600k this month.

Payday 2, meanwhile, saw big gains alongside the launch of new content in June but has since suffered monthly declines of between 15 and 30 per cent.

Team Fortress 2 has seen numbers drop in five of the last seven months, and while at peak its actually enjoyed an increase over the last few months, so too have the troughs been lower. Certainly the overall trend has been downwards.

One of the most notable victims of PUBG’s ascendance has been H1Z1, which has endured a steady decline since July when it peaked at around 150k concurrent players. In the last 30 days that numbers stands at just 110k.

Data courtesy of Steamcharts.com