Fighting game analyst dantarion recently examined the player engagement between Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball Fighterz through Steam

Dragon Ball FighterZ released on January 26, 2018. Upon launch, the game saw a whopping 44,000 players via Steam — but these numbers didn’t last. Twitter user and fighting game analyst dantarion released a comparison of player engagement between DBFZ, Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, and Tekken 7 across their current lifespans.

Retention Thread!. DBFZ peaked at 44k players on Steam on launch day, but only spiked at around 5K after EVO. Its very easy to say, "casuals", and end the conversation about this, but I see it as 40K players that got hyped enough to try it out, but didn't end up sticking it out, pic.twitter.com/R0PNjXASsZ — dantarion! (@dantarion) August 14, 2018

Compared to DBFZ’s 44k players, SFV saw 14,782 fighters on its launch day on February 16, 2016, while Tekken 7 boasted a 18,966 players on June 3rd, 2017. However, player retention across each game has shown a sharp decline since then: SFV retains an average of 1,500-1,600 players, while Tekken 7 keeps anywhere from upwards of 3,000 to 2,600 PC users. DBFZ is on a decline since its recent release date, sinking from about 4,000 players to 2,352 at the last count in May.

Retention has declined across the board for each game, but appears to level out around certain levels. SFV strays between the 1,500 and 2,000 player mark, while Tekken 7 remains strongly at around 3,000 players. DBFZ appears to fluctuate within the 2,000 player range. Those interested can take a look at the full graph here.

Source: dantarion (Twitter)