What's with Unturned's player count?

Since Unturned doesn't track analytics outside of Steam's default stats, we don't have an accurate way to measure the player count besides the Steam player charts and sites that track the public server list, like Battlemetrics.

Steam's player charts use data tracked by the Steam client itself, not game developers, so it includes anyone with an online Internet connection regardless of singleplayer/multiplayer mode. Battlemetrics, on the other hand, uses the API to monitor public multiplayer server listings and count the players found. We keep our own records of the public server list for moderation purposes, and the number of players lines up with Battlemetrics' records.

Considering the discrepancy between the Steam player chart numbers and total players on public servers, it does raise the question of whether bots are idling the game. In the past, players occasionally received free item drops, so it's possible bad actors were incentivized to keep the game running to sell those items. To eliminate this possibility, we permanently turned off playtime item drops. Possibly in response, there was a drop-off in player numbers in early 2023, but otherwise, the player count has remained stable. Some (hopefully small) number of bot hosts likely haven't yet realized they aren't getting any items.

It's also possible many players are in singleplayer and LAN servers (non-public) with their friends. Anecdotally, players who have sent us emails/letters mention relatively frequently that they play primarily singleplayer, so perhaps it's common to play the game casually with mods.

If you are concerned that the player count is unstable, we can at least reassure you that it has been stable since ~2018 at the latest. When a player joins a BattlEye-enabled server, the BattlEye backend is connected to their computer for anti-cheat purposes. BattlEye then counts these players for Unturned's monthly license fee. We have this data all the way back to BattlEye's integration with Unturned in December 2016, and this player count has remained steady ever since 2018, with occasional spikes for special events. Again, anecdotally, I (Nelson) speculate that the reason it was higher in 2016 and 2017 was for the Russia map and release from Early Access before I messed things up with 4.0.