As soon as LawBreakers

The problem is that most of these people have likely never played the game, but thanks to sites like SteamCharts and the less reliable SteamSpy commenters everywhere can feel empowered to make wide generalizations about the health of any game based on “hard facts.”

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But those numbers don’t actually mean much when it comes right down to it, and they certainly don’t paint the whole picture of a game’s success or failure. If there are enough people playing LawBreakers that you can quickly find a game every time you play (which, in my experience, there are) why does it matter to the people playing it what the size of the player base is?

“ Saying a game is "dead" can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s frustrating to see as someone who genuinely enjoys the game, and I imagine downright demoralizing for the developers. But worse than that, it can color the whole conversation around a game to be one of doomsaying and doubt, and sometimes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as incorrect assumptions get passed down as common knowledge.

People could be talking about the good and bad of LawBreakers as an actual game - it’s got incredible movement but uninteresting character designs, for example - but instead there’s a grey cloud hanging over every discussion as people baselessly speculate on how long it will take Boss Key to make it free-to-play.

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So my question to the doomsayers is this: Why do you care? Why does declaring a game dead before you even know what it’s like to play add anything of value to the conversation? You’re not the first to say it, you won’t be the last, and you are usually dead wrong.

I understand that we all want to make sure we get a return on our gaming investments. Games can be expensive, and even free ones cost the time it takes to play them. I sympathize with wanting to make sure I’m not wasting time and money on a game if it potentially won’t be around by this time next year. But basing those guesses on player counts alone is setting yourself (and the game) up for defeat.

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A game’s long term success has to do with a lot more than just its player count on launch week. Popular games can crash, and games with smaller player bases than LawBreakers can thrive with the right post-launch support - and it’s encouraging to see developer Boss Key has already put out an update.

Simply put, the doomsaying should stop. Instead, engage with a game’s community and change the conversation around it. Commenting "game is dead" about something you've never played (but totally saw a Reddit thread on with a comment from a person who compared it to another game on SteamCharts) is not only pointless, it's harmful.

Play the games you want to play. Keep playing them if you like them, stop if you don’t. Get informed about games before you buy them (and we can help with that), but a game’s player count isn't really worth obsessing about unless it's actually hurting the game.

Tom Marks is an Associate Editor focusing on PC gaming at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter