How is FAF doing?

Genuine question, compared to a year or two for example, is the number of players increasing/static/decreasing?
And what about the number of games played?
Just curious..

Based on some relatively recent stats I saw (courtesy of Jip and Sheikah), there were 5.1m games on FAF gametype in 2022, 4.4m 2023, and 1.8m in the first 5m of 2024 (so about 4.4m on an annual basis if the same number of monthly games take place the rest of the year).

In summary, there was a significant increase during COVID, which then dropped back a bit post-covid, with numbers either being relatively steady or declining slightly depending on how you look at things since.

I'd expect a fairly high correlation between games played on FAF, and number of players.

The competitive scene seems pretty dead judging by the lack of interest in the Summer Invitational. I think they should have just gone ahead with whatever players wanted to play though rather than gatekeeping them just because some old AFK pros didn't want to show up to crush them. If you prevent the up and comers from playing they'll never be able to replenish the ones who left.

Afaik Summer invitational was canceled cause high level players were not willing to participate.
However qualifier for that tournament got 24 signups
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/5936/2023-spring-invitational-qualifier?_=1724225911728

The 1v1 scene is a little stagnant, but I still don't have trouble hosting or playing games during peak FAF time. Overall, though, I feel like I don't see many new,stronger players arising, unfortunately.

I no longer play FAF because I have kids. If not for their needs, I'd be on ideally everyday. I'd even participate in a tourney if I knew the real pros were "too busy" to show XD

Didn't the site use to show how many players in how many games are active? Was it removed due to bad numbers? Because I happen to play both FAF and BAR, and I always see a lot more people in BAR, and I talk to people there, and they tell me they come from FAF.

It was removed because backend changes over the years meant that tool didn't work anymore, and nobody wanted to make (and maintain!) a new version of it.