Brand new card game Artifact from Valve has experienced a sizeable dip in playerbase.
That's according to SteamCharts - via PCGamesN - which says that on launch, the title saw a peak of 60,740 concurrent players, a figure that has dropped to just 11,596 in the last 24 hours. That's an 81 per cent dip. There are 11,214 users at the time of writing.
That's not a great look for Valve's card game, but it's still early in its lifecycle. Of course, a title is going to see a dip post-launch from when those who pre-ordered, wishlisted or simply bought Artifact on Day One all in one go. There's also the small matter of Blizzard's Hearthstone dominating the collectable card game genre - and that's free-to-play, too. It doesn't help that the game Artifact is based around - Dota 2 - is also a free download.
It's very likely that there's a sizeable audience of users waiting in the wings to get a better picture of what Artifact is about, something that we will see in the coming year with Valve's plans to run pro-gaming tournaments. This will help give people a taste of what the game is like to play and whether it is for them.
Artifact is the first new game for five years from Valve, the last release being Dota 2, with the PC firm saying that it was going to making more games in the coming years. The firm bought Firewatch developer Campo Santo earlier this year, likely to help this imperative.
