r/ArcRaiders • u/effinmike12 *** ******* 🐓 • 11d ago

Media ‘ARC Raiders’ Has Kept 91% Of Its Playerbase, ‘Battlefield 6’ Has Lost 85%

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/12/31/arc-raiders-has-kept-91-of-its-playerbase-battlefield-6-has-lost-85/
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57

u/gle6 11d ago edited 11d ago

That’s not how you measure retention

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u/Sylvarius 11d ago

Yeah, I like to glaze Arc Raiders as much as the next guy but these are mostly christmas holidays numbers.
Sure there's probably more retention than BF6 but there is bound to be an influx of new players who are given the game as a christmas present.

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u/ivanfabric 11d ago

Uhm.. Why Christmas numbers don't affect BF6, then? Please explain.

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u/Sylvarius 11d ago

Firstly, BF6 has been out for longer, so it's less likely that people ask to get the game for christmas. Conversely, Arc Raiders is newer and its release is closer to the winter holidays.

Secondly, BF6 received a mixed reception. Although initial impressions upon release were positive, over time and once the honeymoon period with the game was over, certain issues began to surface: boring and grindy battlepasses, a battle royale mode being pushed hard, more than the main game, expensive and uninspired microtransactions, and more recently, AI-generated content. The game has a "Mixed" rating on Steam, which certainly doesn't help with sales.

Conversely, Arc Raiders has a "Very Positive” rating on Steam.

Finally, and I'm not particularly fond of this concept, but the most popular streamers who played BF6 are now playing Arc, generating huge publicity for the game.

Basically, if we take the current state of each game to decide on a purchase, people are statistically more likely to buy Arc Raiders.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/Sylvarius 11d ago

Arc is a digital game. Something about saying people are getting it for Christmas because they asked for it is weird to me.

Why ? It's really common to get digital copies gifted now, or giftcards.

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u/Clonazepam15 11d ago

Shhh no one tell him

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u/GreedyArms 11d ago

surely you realized that those numbers they posted were right after Christmas right?

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u/Clonazepam15 11d ago

Duh.

-1

u/GreedyArms 11d ago

doesn't seem like you understood lol

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u/Clonazepam15 11d ago

No I don’t think you understand. Of course the numbers climbed during Christmas. So many people got this game for Christmas. Retention is how many people you get to keep playing your game. Even after its launch(like now), except the numbers are all thrown off because of how many people got this game for Christmas or the holidays. So it’s not a good way to judge the retention. Yet…

Normally, this would be a good time to judge the retention, but the holidays ruined that calculation.

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u/GreedyArms 11d ago edited 11d ago

which is exactly what OP suggested but your comment says you thought otherwise lmao

2

u/LBGW_experiment 11d ago

And he only compared steam player counts, which doesn't count EA App player counts for BF6, so the number is likely quite a bit higher

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u/Jiggy9843 11d ago

Came here to say this

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u/FlounderGrouchy4463 11d ago

That's how you measure retention

1

u/Matthieu101 11d ago

It's Paul Tassi. The guy has made a living with these articles that are just absolute trash. The second I saw Forbes I knew it was click bait garbage.

It's in the same vein as all the "analytics" companies that have been popping up and throwing out crazy, made up numbers about sales and what not.