This week in State of the Game we'll be covering the first full week of April this year. As the top level stats show this was a down week for releases, the first in quite some time. With no major titles released on Steam this week the top level stats are down across the board, with the exception of average completion being a lot higher than normal. This appears to hold true for all other platforms, with the only exception being the release of Persona 5 on the PlayStation.
Domina takes out the top spot with a rather mild 300 or so average players. The game has been in Early Access since the start of the year and those numbers have remained consistent ever since its release. So while they might not be the most amazing numbers they're consistent and for a small dev shop like DolphinBarn that might be all they need.
Considering how well remakes and HD revisions have been doing recently you would have expected Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition to do better than it did. Indeed considering the additional press that the release garnered due to their controversial partnership with G2A (which they've subsequently ended) the numbers are pretty disappointing. Perhaps this will be the kick in the pants that People Can Fly need in order to give the series a full sequel.
The trending section gives us some insight into a new tactic that publishers on Steam are starting to make good use of. Free updates and sales are both guaranteed ways to boost your player base but the impact is increased significantly if they're used together. Both War for the Overworld and This is the Police both manage to substantially increase their player base thanks to this tactic. Shovel Knight managed to get in with just content updates alone and even increased it's price as it transitioned into Shovel Knight Treasure Trove for the version of the title with all the post-launch support, including the new Shovel Knight Spectre of Torment. Just goes to show that sometimes getting in early with these kinds of games can pay off!
