I wonder how many of us are there?

Hey wingmen, I'm curious to know how many DCS users there are on the planet and from how many different countries we all represent? I guess Admin at ED would know. Anyway besides that, it's great to know that this is a friendly global community and boy that's something that's very much welcome in these troubled times :thumbup:

That sounds like it might be commercially sensitive info imo, and do you count everyone who downloaded it because it was free and then didn't get any further than the gui before they gave up trying?

You can see how many people have made it to these forums and registered ( 57,938 ), but that doesn't mean they are all still using it. These forums have been around for ages.

Steam reviews currently number 3,841, & I'm guessing that only a small proportion of people downloading it actually review it, and it hasn't been on Steam for that long, so not too bad.

Compare that to 71,903 War Thunder reviews though, and you see what we are aup against. It is probable that some people will progress from that to more serious sims like DCS in time.

I wouldn't say we're up against War Thunder - War Thunder is arcade through and through, even the simulator battles hardly feel real and targets a casual demographic that doesn't know much about aircraft, while DCS represents a much more realistic and challenging experience targeting a demographic of pretty hardcore simmers. To me, they're parts of two entirely separate genres. War Thunder is a video game, and DCS is a simulator.

[/hijack]

DCS does seem to have users from all over the world active within the community. It's quite amazing, really. I've personally flown with guys from the US, UK, Germany, and Russia. Let me know if you want to go up sometime Gaz, I'd love to add Australia to that list.

I don't know exact number of course, but there are enough for DCS to be commercially viable and for other devs to publish new aircraft modules on a regular basis. There's no doubt that hardcore sims are relatively niche compared to your Call of Duty and World of Warcraft gaming markets, though.

Not sure if it's correct, but as a rough ballpark kind of figure, I think the public part of a community like ours is generally about 10% of the total number of customers.

So with ~60k forum users, I wouldn't be surprised if there were approximately 600k paying customers.

The global community is really cool indeed! I'm a bit surprised that we don't see threads of the kind "I'll be visiting XYZ next month, any DCS simmers wanna meet up then?" I for one would love to get to know more community members. Then again, I didn't start such announcements when I went on vacation, either.

Anyway, those who make it to Hanover, Germany, be sure to give us a heads-up, we've got a nice active community with meetings about once a month here. Sure would be nice to receive foreigners (by which I mean more foreign than Euskirchen - sorry at Sofa :D).

There are plenty of us for ED to keep shelling out amazing content. That is good enough for me.

I use to enjoy War Thunder arcade battles with my non sim friends. I tried to use my flight gear over there and even in realistic battles it is NOT realistic. War Thunder has its place. A simulator it is not.

https://steamdb.info/app/223750/graphs/

Hit the Graphs and Spy.

1.6 mill owners, on Steam. This of course, doesnt say anything, and gives you no idea how many actually play it, and have bought something.

DCS World is free, so that makes a lot of people download it, just because of that.

800.000 players (what ever that defines).

23.700 players the last 14 days.

Currently 306 steam users in game.

Peak was 441

Wow I'm glad I'm asked, some really interesting points and figures there and thanks all for chiming in. And thank you kindly Kippy for that offer man, hey I would be honoured but you know what?! I've never done Multiplayer and don't even own a headset haha I wouldn't know where to start. I'm still discovering things in the A-10C, it's been three months now with my HOTAS Warthog throttle n stick and I'm still absolutely loving it. And only last week completed the amazing Enemy Within campaign just today before work finally finished off Stone Shield, next I want to fnish The Georgian Hammer campaign as I'm only a third way through and it's proving to be pretty tuff. Maybe with a few more months under my belt I maybe ready for a go at multiplayer. And I really applied myself to this, reading, writing, listening and watching tutorials, asking questions and it's paying off ten fold man! I would advise anyone thinking of embarking on this journey to get the HOTAS set up and go for it! It's so much fun and so awesome and well worth the effort. Sorry I'm rambling haha, peace out, G :-)

Oh, and for the record, Of course I'm not comparing DCS to WarThunder... That goes without saying, just using it as an example of a popular "Free to Play" download on Steam, which IS what DCSWorld is, (free to play that is), but perhaps not as popular because Hardcore sims never have been.

We tend to be in it for the long term, although in smaller numbers. After all, hands up those who still mess with Falcon 4.0 via the outstanding BMS Mod? :thumbup:

Ahh memories.. I used to love Falcon 4.0 and F-22 Air Dominance Fighter.. before laptops had graphics cards haha but shhhh we're supposed to keep the forum relevant hehe :-)

Not sure if it's correct, but as a rough ballpark kind of figure, I think the public part of a community like ours is generally about 10% of the total number of customers.

 

So with ~60k forum users, I wouldn't be surprised if there were approximately 600k paying customers.

+1 Lot of people never registered on the forum and doesn't feel the community: just play.

Last Friday, just after the 2.1 release, there were over 1200 users online, but mostly were guests not registered on the forum.

Most of them discuss on the steam board or reddit though

I wouldn't say we're up against War Thunder - War Thunder is arcade through and through, even the simulator battles hardly feel real and targets a casual demographic that doesn't know much about aircraft, while DCS represents a much more realistic and challenging experience targeting a demographic of pretty hardcore simmers. To me, they're parts of two entirely separate genres. War Thunder is a video game, and DCS is a simulator.

[/hijack]

 

DCS does seem to have users from all over the world active within the community. It's quite amazing, really. I've personally flown with guys from the US, UK, Germany, and Russia. Let me know if you want to go up sometime Gaz, I'd love to add Australia to that list.

But he could be right, i ended in DCS because of WT

The multiplayer community is actually pretty small. Theres usually only a few hundred players online at any given time, across both versions. I dont have the stats for this, but all you have to do is sort the servers by amount of players, there is usually two or three with 20+ players and the rest are 1-5 people. The 2.1 server browser shows you how many are online now though which is cool.

I've never done Multiplayer and don't even own a headset haha I wouldn't know where to start.

I used to fly SP almost exclusively for years until I found a couple of great guys to fly with randomly, which soon led me to join a squad. And the gain in experience and immersion is just soo wow! :)

I'd say get a headset, find some people to fly with and give it a go. When you make it clear that you're new to MP, I'm sure they'll do their best to share their knowledge with you and get you up to speed. As long as you don't join a random server and do all the wrong things (not reading chat, not getting on TeamSpeak, taking off from taxiway, shooting your own guys, you know, that kind of wrong things :smartass:), you should be good. :)

Check the Multiplayer part of the forum for some ideas.

I used to fly SP almost exclusively for years until I found a couple of great guys to fly with randomly, which soon led me to join a squad. And the gain in experience and immersion is just soo wow! :)

 

I'd say get a headset, find some people to fly with and give it a go. When you make it clear that you're new to MP, I'm sure they'll do their best to share their knowledge with you and get you up to speed. As long as you don't join a random server and do all the wrong things (not reading chat, not getting on TeamSpeak, taking off from taxiway, shooting your own guys, you know, that kind of wrong things :smartass:), you should be good. :)

 

Check the Multiplayer part of the forum for some ideas.

Thanks for the tips Yurgs, it sounds incredible and I'll definitely give it some thought but I'll wait till I have a few more campaigns under my belt before I would consider it, I need more experience. And man I felt soooo bad just in single player when I unintentionally caused fratricide so I could imagine the bummer of doing in mp eeeeesh. :doh:

What about the number of Hotas Warthogs sold? Of course not everyone has it, but it could give an estimation of the most enthusiastic players. I don't really have info about the numbers sold, here on the forums around 800 are registered. But the serial numbers reach 60000. If only half of it is sold or used in DCS, 30000 is not a bad number.

Well, where come from DCS is pretty unknown compared to P3D and FSX, not more than 30 people I'm in touch and they play DCS online or flying constantly. But after all we're trying to introduce DCS to those who are active in civilian sim community, we had some good process on that recently and I can see a bright future for DCS in our sim community after all.

I never understood the attraction to FSX or similar. To me, it's like saying "Hmm...I want to fly a sim, but do I want a one-two hour flight, blow things up and avoid SAMs, or do I want a 6 hour flight at Angels 34 non-stop to (insert far away place here)?

I think it would be fun to try NOE flying with a 747 though...replicate various catastrophes and other events. But it'd get old fast.

I never understood the attraction to FSX or similar. To me, it's like saying "Hmm...I want to fly a sim, but do I want a one-two hour flight, blow things up and avoid SAMs, or do I want a 6 hour flight at Angels 34 non-stop to (insert far away place here)?

 

I think it would be fun to try NOE flying with a 747 though...replicate various catastrophes and other events. But it'd get old fast.

It sometimes gets boring... staring at B777 or A330 instruments for 12 hours flying Amsterdam to LAX (half of flight time is over ocean, no scenery no nothing) , I don't really know how and why, but I like it:pilotfly:. And of course the manuals and documents are way thicker than the ones we have here. Any way, this is a DCS discussion topic ;)

Well, where come from DCS is pretty unknown compared to P3D and FSX, [...]

Same here, buddy. :)

When I mention I'm into flight simming, most people don't have any idea what that's all about. Of those who do, almost all know about FSX, some know about X-Plane, but meeting someone who actually knows DCS is a rarity.

If it weren't for this forum, I'd probably still fly SP exclusively.

Same here, buddy. :)

 

When I mention I'm into flight simming, most people don't have any idea what that's all about. Of those who do, almost all know about FSX, some know about X-Plane, but meeting someone who actually knows DCS is a rarity.

 

If it weren't for this forum, I'd probably still fly SP exclusively.

Wow, I'm really surprised to hear that DCS is not well known in Germany, ED needs to work harder on introducing itself to the folks out there.

To attract more potential "gamers" DCS needs to become a game as well.

I see many things in between this desire and reality.

I dont wanna go into detail, too lazy and to useless I am afraid for now

To attract more potential "gamers" DCS needs to become a game as well.

 

I see many things in between this desire and reality.

 

I dont wanna go into detail, too lazy and to useless I am afraid for now

Maybe, for me it's the sim part that has me enthralled, just saying. :thumbup:

To attract more potential "gamers" DCS needs to become a game as well.

 

I see many things in between this desire and reality.

 

I dont wanna go into detail, too lazy and to useless I am afraid for now

I'm very much into the realism, but I do like to just play around from time to time and show potential others you can just play around and have fun like in these videos.

I think the videos show off the very accurate flight models in DCS too.

SpNIKoniQe8

r8pGBXLUVMQ

Wow, I'm really surprised to hear that DCS is not well known in Germany, ED needs to work harder on introducing itself to the folks out there.

Well it's a niche in a niche, as they say.

We do have a pretty cool community here, I think the German market is relatively important for ED, seeing as we have several translators working hard to provide a localized version. I think German was also one of the first localizations outside of English and Russian.

Even so, I know of less than 20 DCS pilots in my town of Hanover (~ 500,000). There are probably more than that, but DCS remains a niche product.

And I'm not sure if ED should actually try to make it more appealing to others. I'm not willing to put up with game flight mode or game avionics in order to help newcomers who don't want to invest dozens of hours just to be able to take off and land. DCS isn't a classic game, there's no progression, no achievements, no unlocking of new weapons -- it's a sandbox. And I love it for this. But it also means that in order to appeal to gamers, DCS itself would need to change in a way I'd probably consider bad.

So, as long as our community gets ED and the 3rd parties funded, I'm not complaining about belonging to a small community. ;)