Evolve Players Rack Up 6M Matches A Week Since Launch

It's said that there's no such publicity as bad publicity. That seems to be the case with Turtle Rock Studios' hybrid multiplayer game "Evolve." The publisher 2K Games seems stoked enough to release a rather impressive infographic that details some seemingly improbable numbers associated with the game's first-week launch period.

According to Gamespot, the stats reveal that over six million matches were waged between monsters and hunters in the period from Feb. 10 to Feb. 18. That mind boggling number translates into 108 years of cumulative playtime distributed between "Evolve" players world over. If you're still getting over the fact that so many man hours were spent playing the game, you probably won't like the idea that people have actually spent 133 million minutes watching others play the game on Twitch.

Telemetry data seems to be boring mathematical trifles for the untrained eye. However, this minute and detailed recording of player activity and related statistics reveals a great deal of insight into the game. This covers aspects ranging from the simple ones such as gamer's preferences for certain gameplay modes to more a complex analysis on whether the developers have managed to create a balanced game.

The telemetry figures are instrumental in revealing the fine gameplay balance underpinning this multiplayer game. The monsters took the lead over hunters by winning 51.9 percent of the matches, as opposed to 48.1 percent won by the latter. The narrow margin of victory points to the fact that the strength of the hugely disparate character classes is evenly matched. This is especially remarkable since "Evolve" is built around the hybrid mix of PvP and co-op components set against a highly asymmetric warfare between multiple hunters pursuing one monster.

The average match length is pegged at 9:46 minutes, with a wide variation between the shortest (1 minute) and longest (43 minutes) battles. One interesting statistic stands out. The average time spent by hunters in finding their adversary is 2:23 minutes, which happens to be a quarter of the total average match time spent doing nothing but roaming aimlessly around the map.

This categorically confirms a common grouse listed by the initial game reviews such as the one by Metro.co.uk. "The more significant issue is that finding and killing the monster seems so artificial and routine after a worryingly short amount of time," writes Roger Hargreaves while pointing out the large amount of time spent tracking the monsters. "It’s very difficult for the hunters to be proactive, as they’re always chasing after the monster or – just as often – wandering around slightly aimlessly, wondering where it is."

It must be noted that despite the detailed nature of the launch-week statistics, the "Evolve" team hasn't provided any sales numbers for the game. This is surprising because most commercially successful titles feature glowing sales figures as the main part of the official post-launch communications.

2K Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive had purchased the "Evolve" IP from the beleaguered publisher THQ during a bankruptcy auction for $10.8 million according to Polygon. It will be still some more time before we can know the total sales figures and whether the game recovered its development costs.

In case you have any feedback or wish tip us off, the author can be contacted at nachiketpg13@hotmail.com

Evolve Intro Cinematic (Credit: Evolve official YouTube channel)