Dragon Ball Sparking Zero immediately caused a stir since it was first released on October 11.
This game is in the spotlight because it successfully presents exciting and colorful Dragon Ball anime-style fights. Many fans even say this is one of the best Dragon Ball games ever!
No wonder, this game sold really well on the first day. Just imagine, in the first 24 hours, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has sold three million copies!
Bandai Namco also announced that this game immediately broke the record as the most played fighting game on Steam when it was first launched.
Unfortunately, the hype didn't last long. In less than a month, the number of active players on Steam began to drop significantly.
According to data from SteamDB, as reported by Dexerto.com, the number of active players is now only around 6,096 people, and the highest number in the last 24 hours was only 14,303 players.
When compared to the peak number on the first day which reached 122,000 players, this means a decrease of around 89%!
This decrease is not just a one-off, but a trend that has continued since the first day. The number of players is decreasing every day, although there was a slight increase on October 19 and 26.
But keep in mind, this data is only from the Steam platform, so it does not count players on other platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox, which certainly also have many players. But if the decreasing trend is the same there, this is clearly homework for Bandai Namco.
There are several possibilities that make players start to withdraw from this game. First, there is the problem of hackers on PC who are destroying online play.
These hackers can make their Ki endless, so they can continue to issue powerful moves that overwhelm opponents.
In addition, there is also a balancing problem. Dragon Ball Sparking Zero focuses more on making characters as strong as in the original story rather than thinking about balance in the game. As a result, some characters, such as Goku Black, are too strong and difficult to defeat.
But don't worry, there's good news for Dragon Ball Sparking Zero fans. Bandai Namco has prepared a DLC that will be released in 2025.
This DLC will add new characters from various Dragon Ball stories, so it's likely that this update will make old or new players come back to play this game.
So, even though Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has lost players, this game still has the potential to rise again.
Hopefully, with the update and handling of the problems above, the experience of playing this game will be more exciting and fair for all players!