CCP's War On Bots: Average Concurrent Users - 4 Feb 2012 to 5 Mar 2012

With the forces of CCP renewing its War on Bots™, the time has come to evaluate the effect on the number of people playing Eve Online.  CCP Sreegs stated that between one thousand and two thousand accounts were banned in the first anti-bot sweep two weeks ago.  I know a lot of players don't trust CCP and look to what they do instead of what they say.  When the subject comes to the War on Bots™ the distrust goes deeper as many don't believe that CCP is serious about combatting botting.


Source: Eve-Offline.net | Chribba OMG Labs

From 4 February to 26 February, CCP had a good three weeks, with the 7-day average of players online increasing 7.5%.  Then CCP Screegs unleashed Botageddon and over the course of the next 8 days that gain was practically wiped out.

What has happened over the past 7 days?  The average concurrent user numbers on Eve Offline, unlike the peak concurrent user numbers, have a lag of seven days.  Looking at the peak concurrent user numbers indicates that the number of players stayed relatively stable during that time.


Source: Eve-Offline.net | Chribba OMG Labs

Looking at the seven day rolling PCU average only shows a decline of 1000 users during the two week period while the seven day rolling average of ACU shows a decline of 2200 users in the week after the wave of bot bannings.  One reason for the difference is that botters will usually try to run their bots at times when they believe player bot-hunters are less active.  But another reason may be that the growth seen in Eve this year continues to rise and CCP Sreeg's efforts are just a bump in the road that is only a short term decline.  With the first of the latest 14 day bans scheduled to expire next week, I am interesed to see exactly how much of a boost we see in concurrent user numbers going forward into Fanfest.