Content Attributes
Lost Ark is off to a great start, instantly jumping into second place as the most played game on Steam.
After just 24 hours, Lost Ark has comfortably passed 1 million concurrent players. Making the title the second most played game in Steam history (by concurrent counts). The Diablo-like MMO generated a lot of hype before its launch in the West after Amazon Games partnered with Smilegate RPG to localize and translate Lost Ark.
According to SteamDB, Lost Ark easily passed over Counter-Strike. Global Offensive’s all-time peak of 1,308,963 players to secure the #2 spot. It may be an uphill battle if we’re talking about Lost Ark possibly taking down PUBG’s record of 3.2 million players at one time considering that these peaks tend to happen around a game’s release. Nonetheless, it’s an impressive feat for the MMO, even if it’s not exactly clear how many of those players are actively playing the game/farming Lost ARK gold and not sitting in a server queue.
Lost Ark Was Already Popular Even Before its Release
The accomplishment of being the second most played game on Steam shouldn’t come too much of a surprise. As Lost Arks had already become one of Steam’s biggest-ever games before it even went to the free-to-play route in the first place.
Lost Ark was originally released in 2019 in South Korea, and to this day. It has millions of active players farming Lost ARK currency in Russian, Japan, and South Korean servers. It was originally an MMO where you have to pay to play. But when Smilegate RPG decided to make Lost Ark free for everyone, the title has quickly risen to the top.
Relieving the Pressure on Servers
To say that Lost Ark took Steam by storm is an understatement. Although the game seems to have had a smooth launch in the Americas, European servers have been beset with very, very long login queues. Luckily, Smilegate and Amazon announced that they have a plan to create a new European server region to alleviate the overcrowding. But as with anything related to server congestion issues these days. The audience was frustrated by the lack of both companies’ preparations.
To make matters worse, players won’t be able to carry over any character or progress should they plan to move to the new region. Smilegate RPG made it crystal clear that the region they’ll be adding in the future is mainly intended for those who’ve not yet committed to a single server and incoming players. The developers then further insisted that a new server region was the only possible solution “due to the game’s architecture”.
Long login queues at a launch of a major expansion or new online game are nothing new and the circumstances usually improve after a week or two. But Lost Ark’s launch issues do seem to expose an inflexibility in the MMO’s setup. As well as a discrepancy in its European and American launch strategies.
As compensation for the disruption and celebration of the launch. Smilegate and Amazon announced that they would distribute gift packages. Which include a choice of mount, several consumable Lost ARK items chests, and a skin selection chest to all players. The gift will be available after the new server region launches and anyone can get it before March 1.
How Long Will the Hype Last?
We know Smilegate RPG has a somewhat positive reputation with how they maintained Lost Ark in the Asian and Russian servers, but what about Amazon? Remember that Amazon still has New World the take care of, and so far. They’re not doing a great job at it. After having the almost exact experience as Lost Arks where they hit a record of concurrent players on Steam. New World seemingly fell off the charts and into the abyss of irrelevancy.
We can’t say for sure that this will also happen to Lost Ark. But we mean it when we say that sooner or later. The hype train will fall off the rails and fewer people will be farming Lost ARKs currency. In the end, what matters is how Smilegate RPG and Amazon keep things afloat moving forward.
What are your thoughts about Lost Arks? Let us know down below!