Now, more than ever, gamers and pundits are flocking to SteamDB to track player concurrent numbers for existing live service titles and recently released titles to try to piece together whether a game is failing or succeeding. It's not perfect, as most games are released on PC and on consoles, but it's as close as an image we have public access to.
Right now, the focus of those efforts is on Marathon, Bungie's latest title. Before it was closed, the focus was on Highguard. And before that it was Concord. Do you sense a pattern there?
If players could see Highguard's failure coming, why couldn't anyone else?
Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed that Highguard will be offline next week.
Seemingly not satisfied with the information available, 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 discovered by Push Square, it pulls data from SteamDB, albeit with a different agenda on their minds.
“While publicists hide behind agendas and PR spin, we track what actually matters – the players,” the website's homepage says. “Raw data. Real numbers. No stories. We don't care about your politics. We care about your game. Don't try to label us haters for calling 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 principles that will seemingly guide its approach:
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“Track player count live – unfiltered, unsponsored”
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“Community-driven verdicts: players decide what flops”
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“No corporate influence. No paid reviews. No bulls**t.”
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“Game focused. Player first. Always.”
The site also has goals, for some reason
One thing that stands out is that there are “Targets” that are specifically tracked. These titles seem to be ones that have gone against the site's mission.
Right now the “goals” are the following:
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Marathon
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1348 Ex Voto
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Crimson Desert
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Last flag
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Solasta II
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Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection
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Skull and bones
Each individual page has a small amount of player data, including concurrent charts and percentage increases and decreases. You can vote if a game is a “Flop” or “Hot”. For example, Marathon has 1,700 votes for “Flop” status versus 435 votes for “Hot” status.
There is a chat log called “Field Reports” and a Discord.
“This site is true web democracy. Screw it,” 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 doing.
SteamDB has already done most of this as a standalone endeavor, so it's unclear what void is being filled beyond letting people debate in real time whether a game succeeds or fails, something that already happens regularly anyway.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen/animated blood, language, violence, in-game purchases, user interaction
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
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