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Sony accidentally revealed playercounts for nearly every PS4 game

Sony's personalized videos showcasing games played and trophies earned by PlayStation users have inadvertently revealed how many people have played each game.

Game Developer, Staff

December 17, 2018

1 Min Read
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Sony's personalized videos showcasing the games played and trophies earned by PlayStation users have inadvertently revealed how many people have played each game, thanks to calculations made from trophy stats.

It's important to note that this player data isn’t indicative of total sales for any particular game, but it's still pretty notable since this seems to be the first instance of information like this being publicly available.

First noticed by Reddit user gamstat, they explain how these videos (dubbed by Sony as "My PS4 Life") can provide player statistics, giving what looks like pretty accurate numbers on how many PS4 users are playing a specific game. 

Gamstat claims to have calculated the figures from information on the trophies provided in the My PS4 Life videos. The personalized videos tell players the name of the rarest trophy they've earned, in addition to how many other players also have the same achievement.

By combining these figures with percentages for the trophies provided on the PlayStation website, gamstat says they've been able to figure out how many people have at least started playing the games. "Here, 33,764 players earned the "Photo Bomber" trophy in Fallout 76," the post explains.

"And on Playstation.com it's revealed that 8,3 percent of all players got this trophy. Simple math: the total number of people who have played Fallout 76 on PS4 = 33,764 * 100 percent / 8,3 percent = 406,795."

They also pointed out in the post that while the calculations give a general idea of player numbers, the figures were taken from a specific time window and "won't say much about recently released games."

To check out the entire Reddit post, click here. 

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