Now, more than ever, players and pundits are flocking to SteamDB to track player concurrent numbers for existing live-service titles and recently-released titles to try and piece together whether a game is failing or succeeding. It’s not perfect, since most games release on PC and on consoles, but it’s as close as a picture we publicly have access to.
Right now, the focus of those efforts is on Marathon, Bungie’s latest title. Before its shutdown, that focus was on Highguard. And before that, it was Concord. Sense a pattern there?
If Players Could See Highguard’s Failure Coming, Why Couldn’t Anyone Else?
Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed that Highguard will being offline next week.
Seemingly not content with the data that there is, a new site has emerged to track titles in real-time to see if they will “flop.” Naturally, it’s called Flopathon, and, as first spotted by Push Square, it’s pulling data from SteamDB, albeit with a different agenda on their minds.
“While publishers hide behind agendas and PR spin, we track what actually matters — the players,” the site’s homepage reads. “Raw data. Real numbers. No narratives. We don’t care about your politics. We care about your game. Don’t try to brand us as haters because we call out a bad product. We’re not here for agendas — we’re here for the truth behind the player count.”
The site has established four core tenets that will seemingly guide its approach:
- “Track live player counts — unfiltered, unsponsored”
- “Community-driven verdicts: the players decide what flopped”
- “No corporate influence. No paid reviews. No bulls**t.”
- “Game-focused. Player-first. Always.”
The Site Also Has Targets, For Some Reason
One thing that sticks out, is that there are “Targets” that are specifically being tracked. Those titles are seemingly ones that have gone against the mission of the site.
Right now, the “targets” are as follows:
- Marathon
- 1348 Ex Voto
- Crimson Desert
- Last Flag
- Solasta II
- Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection
- Skull and Bones
Each individual page has a smattering of player data, including concurrent charts and percentage increase and decrease rates. You can vote if a game is a “Flop” or “Hot.” For example, Marathon has 1,700 votes for “Flop” status against 435 votes for “Hot” status.
There’s a chat log called “Field Reports” and a Discord.
“This site is true web democracy. Screw the naysayers,” one user wrote in the chat log.
And there’s even a “Testimonials” page filled with tweets from people criticizing the site, perhaps as a way to show that the mission is worth undertaking.
SteamDB has already done most of this as an independent endeavor, so it’s unclear what void is being filled other than allowing people to discuss in real-time whether a game is succeeding or failing, something that already happens on a regular basis anyway.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Animated Blood, Language, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
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