Since apparently there is a lot of misconception about PR and its population, it is the time to finally have a look at actual hard data. I have read through hundreds of forum threads and discord discussions. Based on both publically available and internal PR Team sources, I have been able to gather quite a lot of information. Most of the publically available sources are listed at the bottom.
During the data gathering process, I have encountered many obstacles which leave the data open to interpretation:
- Sometimes people vaguely mention just the number of populated servers, usually full servers only.
- When people actually mention the number of players, especially in the first decade of PR, they might be including bots from COOP as at that time bots were not filtered out. What is worse, I have been unable to pinpoint the exact moment when bots stopped being included in both publically available and internal population stats people often refer to in discussions. I only know for a fact that it was still an issue in February 2010 when the highest peak of over 2k players was reported and at that time, it was (very) generally estimated in an internal PR Team discussion that the actual player count never exceeded 1955 players (which also appears to be the all-time peak).
- Often it is difficult to say whether the numbers provided are a one time phenomenon, and should be classified as a monthly peak, or a common occurrence and should be considered as a typical weekly peak.
- EU and NA players report their own peaks and it is difficult to assess which timezone had higher peaks of players at the time.
- Of course people may not always be correct, especially when recollecting numbers from a few years back (although it is quite rare).
The Graph
Every dot on the graph below represents the highest peaks in the number of players at the specified time, based on all the gathered data.
For context, here is a list of the most important PR changes and the version in which they were introduced (based on The Great Project Reality Timeline).
Spoiler for Context for versions:
Except for a few spikes caused by big updates as well as going standalone, the concurrent number of players appears to be quite stable. Usually, the numbers went back to normal in a matter of weeks or 2-3 months after a significant peak. In that regard, v0.8, v0.9 and v0.95 peaks (~1500, ~2000 and ~1300 players) seem to be completely gone within 2 months after the release that caused an influx of players. The increase in numbers after v1.3 seems to have lasted the longest, around 6 months, which is most likely related to the game no longer requiring Battlefield 2.
For every peak, there was a reported decrease in the quality of players. Before PR Mumble was integrated into the game (v1.0 in 2013), people complained for instance about players being unwilling to download and install Mumble.
In the last few years, people have been complaining mainly about "no mics" (players who do not have, or do not use, a microphone) as well as players not speaking English well (or at all).
The "PR is dying" myth
So, where does the "pR iS dYiNg" come from? I think there are mainly 2 sources of this myth:
1) We switched to 100 player servers. This effectively cut the number of servers in half and might have created an impression of a significantly decreasing playerbase. This is true especially for people who played during the short-lived 1000+ player peaks with 64 player servers only. They remember seeing 10, 15 or even 20 full servers, so when they join now and see 4, their impression is that "PR is dead". However, if that's how we define the death of PR, then we can also say it was never really alive in the first place, except for a few weeks or months after a few big updates. The impression of "PR dying" is further reinforced by the realization that 2 of these 4 full servers will not be English-speaking most of the time.
2) Compared to the first few years of PR's existence, the number of EU/NA players partially decreased and has been partially replaced by people from eastern Europe, Russia, South East Asia and, most notably, South America. It does not mean PR is dead. However, the playerbase shifted from a homogeneous, English-speaking community into a more diverse mass of people using a variety of languages. It does not necesarily negatively influence the tactics in-game as most people are more than capable of understanding simple orders given in English. However, not everyone may be capable of having elaborate discussions in his second language, impacting the ability of the players to develop relationships.
Other Population Data
In terms of other types of data, PRStats reports over 320,000 (320k, or 320 thousand) PR profiles spotted playing online in the last 4 years (between April 2020 and April 2024).
Conclusion
I hope that concludes all future "PR is dying" threads and discussions which we see every year since 2006.
Spoiler for Sources:
On a side note, in this context, the population Squad managed to gain is even more impressive.
pr together strong
