SameTeem
Search titles only
By:
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Home
Forums
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
What's new
Featured content
Media
Resources
Free TeamSpeak Channel
TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak
Vote
Rank System
Make a Channel
Free Channel Information
Servers
Sourcebans
New posts
SameTeem
Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
Featured content
Media
Resources
Free TeamSpeak Channel
TeamSpeak
Vote
Rank System
Make a Channel
Free Channel Information
Servers
Sourcebans
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Navigation
Install the app
Install
More options
Contact us
Close Menu
Download TeamSpeak Today
Proudly sponsored by TeamSpeak
Forums
News and Announcements
Gaming News
Valve's Dead TCG Artifact Suddenly Had 12,000 Players on New Year's Day, and the Community Is Baffled
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Admin" data-source="post: 65937" data-attributes="member: 1"><p>As we rang in the new year earlier this week, thousands of people <em>seemed</em> to be celebrating in an admittedly unusual way: by playing Valve's 2018 TCG Artifact.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Then, as quickly as they started, the 12,000-ish individuals all stopped playing at once on January 3, leaving the game as empty as it had been at the end of 2024.</p><p></p><p>Who were these people? No one seems to know. The <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hqvdjy/12k_players_again/" target="_blank">Artifact community isn't reporting any sudden spikes in interest</a>, and no one's really talking about the game on social media apart from marveling at the sudden jump in player numbers.</p><p></p><p>So why, then, is <a href="https://steamdb.info/app/583950/charts/" target="_blank">SteamDB</a> suggesting that a free-to-play card game that is, by all accounts, <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/artifact-valve-stops-development-on-struggling-card-game" target="_blank">close to dead</a>, seeing wild spikes in users over very specific two-day periods?</p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikestubbs/2025/01/01/12000-people-are-playing-artifact-right-now-and-no-one-knows-why/" target="_blank">As spotted by Forbes</a>, Artifact Classic's (the original, now free-to-play version of Artifact) player count suddenly spiked on December 31, jumping from a measly ~200 concurrent players up to the 5,000s, before spiking to a height of over 12,000. Artifact remained at around 11,000 concurrents through the second, before its playercount absolutely tanked back down to ~150 at midnight on January 3rd. What's strange is that something almost exactly like this happened earlier this month, too: on December 14, player counts shot up to around 14,000, hung out there for about two days, and dive bombed again into the hundreds on the 17th.</p><p></p><p>So what's really going on here? The actual answer is that no one <em>really </em>knows. The most prevalent community theory seems to be that it's bots, though why someone would train bots to play Artifact isn't exactly clear. One person suggested someone was training an AI to play the game "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hf87nf/comment/m2agrbz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button" target="_blank">for shits and giggles</a>" which is perhaps as good an explanation as any. Another person suggested the spikes were due to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hqvdjy/comment/m4y3g74/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button" target="_blank">scam bots increasing playtime in random games</a> in order to make their Steam accounts look legitimate for <a href="https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/70E6-991B-233B-A37B" target="_blank">other purposes</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Another theory pointed out by multiple members of the Artifact subreddit is that the spike in players is due to pirates. Because certain video games require Steam authentication, in order to pirate those games, pirates will use the AppID/SDK of a different, free-to-play game to fool Steam into thinking they have a real copy. In this case, it's being suggested they're using Artifact. That said, this theory doesn't entirely hold up, due to the extremely sudden spikes and then drops in activity at very precise times.</p><p></p><p>So the actual answer behind Artifact's mysterious player numbers remains a mystery for now. We did reach out to Valve for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication. What is clear at least is that despite the numbers, Artifact itself doesn't seem to be garnering any meaningful, real-world interest eight years after launch and four years after Valve <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/artifact-valve-stops-development-on-struggling-card-game" target="_blank">effectively called it quits</a>, even though the game itself <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/13/artifact-review" target="_blank">was pretty fun at first</a>. At least the bots, if they are indeed bots, in Artifact don't seem to be bothering legitimate players, unlike <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-steam-reviews-drop-to-mostly-negative-as-players-plead-with-valve-to-do-something-about-bots" target="_blank">the on-and-off situation over in Team Fortress 2</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to <a href="mailto:rvalentine@ign.com">rvalentine@ign.com</a>.</em></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/valves-dead-tcg-artifact-suddenly-had-12000-players-on-new-years-day-and-the-community-is-baffled" target="_blank">Continue reading...</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Admin, post: 65937, member: 1"] As we rang in the new year earlier this week, thousands of people [I]seemed[/I] to be celebrating in an admittedly unusual way: by playing Valve's 2018 TCG Artifact. Then, as quickly as they started, the 12,000-ish individuals all stopped playing at once on January 3, leaving the game as empty as it had been at the end of 2024. Who were these people? No one seems to know. The [URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hqvdjy/12k_players_again/']Artifact community isn't reporting any sudden spikes in interest[/URL], and no one's really talking about the game on social media apart from marveling at the sudden jump in player numbers. So why, then, is [URL='https://steamdb.info/app/583950/charts/']SteamDB[/URL] suggesting that a free-to-play card game that is, by all accounts, [URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/artifact-valve-stops-development-on-struggling-card-game']close to dead[/URL], seeing wild spikes in users over very specific two-day periods? [URL='https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikestubbs/2025/01/01/12000-people-are-playing-artifact-right-now-and-no-one-knows-why/']As spotted by Forbes[/URL], Artifact Classic's (the original, now free-to-play version of Artifact) player count suddenly spiked on December 31, jumping from a measly ~200 concurrent players up to the 5,000s, before spiking to a height of over 12,000. Artifact remained at around 11,000 concurrents through the second, before its playercount absolutely tanked back down to ~150 at midnight on January 3rd. What's strange is that something almost exactly like this happened earlier this month, too: on December 14, player counts shot up to around 14,000, hung out there for about two days, and dive bombed again into the hundreds on the 17th. So what's really going on here? The actual answer is that no one [I]really [/I]knows. The most prevalent community theory seems to be that it's bots, though why someone would train bots to play Artifact isn't exactly clear. One person suggested someone was training an AI to play the game "[URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hf87nf/comment/m2agrbz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button']for shits and giggles[/URL]" which is perhaps as good an explanation as any. Another person suggested the spikes were due to [URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/Artifact/comments/1hqvdjy/comment/m4y3g74/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button']scam bots increasing playtime in random games[/URL] in order to make their Steam accounts look legitimate for [URL='https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/70E6-991B-233B-A37B']other purposes[/URL]. Another theory pointed out by multiple members of the Artifact subreddit is that the spike in players is due to pirates. Because certain video games require Steam authentication, in order to pirate those games, pirates will use the AppID/SDK of a different, free-to-play game to fool Steam into thinking they have a real copy. In this case, it's being suggested they're using Artifact. That said, this theory doesn't entirely hold up, due to the extremely sudden spikes and then drops in activity at very precise times. So the actual answer behind Artifact's mysterious player numbers remains a mystery for now. We did reach out to Valve for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication. What is clear at least is that despite the numbers, Artifact itself doesn't seem to be garnering any meaningful, real-world interest eight years after launch and four years after Valve [URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/artifact-valve-stops-development-on-struggling-card-game']effectively called it quits[/URL], even though the game itself [URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/13/artifact-review']was pretty fun at first[/URL]. At least the bots, if they are indeed bots, in Artifact don't seem to be bothering legitimate players, unlike [URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-steam-reviews-drop-to-mostly-negative-as-players-plead-with-valve-to-do-something-about-bots']the on-and-off situation over in Team Fortress 2[/URL]. [I]Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email]rvalentine@ign.com[/email].[/I] [url="https://www.ign.com/articles/valves-dead-tcg-artifact-suddenly-had-12000-players-on-new-years-day-and-the-community-is-baffled"]Continue reading...[/url] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
News and Announcements
Gaming News
Valve's Dead TCG Artifact Suddenly Had 12,000 Players on New Year's Day, and the Community Is Baffled
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…
Top
