A month after its peak popularity, Borderlands 4 has already lost a significant portion of its audience.
On September 14, about a month ago, 304,398 people were playing simultaneously on Steam. Now, that number has dropped to around 44,000 (peak on weekends), which is a decrease of about 85%. This kind of decline is common for game-as-a-service titles.
For most single-player games, developers expect to make the bulk of their profit immediately after release, and a long "tail" of players is only seen in select franchises. With the advent of game-as-a-service models, many saw great potential, but the risks turned out to be significant as well. Failure can cost a company its closure, as some mobile studios have shown.
But successful game-as-a-service titles continue to influence the industry. Gearbox is betting on Borderlands 4, offering paid and free DLC during the first year after release.
The main problem is the lack of endgame content. Players would like more activity after completing the campaign. In addition, there were performance issues on all platforms at launch, and some users are waiting for them to be fixed.
Gearbox still has opportunities for growth: launching a version for Switch 2 could give a second wave of popularity, and the promised cross-progression will allow playing on different platforms, simultaneously developing a character and saving progress.
