It’s safe to say Frontier Developments’ Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin hasn’t got off to the best start since its release on November 17, with the developers reporting a near 20% drop in share prices due to poor sales.
At the time of writing, the game has peaked at 1,572 users according to SteamDB data. The game's player population has unfortunately been on a steady decline, dipping under 500 concurrent players and heading continually down, settling between 100-300.
However, Frontier hasn’t even thought about downing tools for Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin with the devs looking to “evolve and support” the title moving forward including paid DLC expansions launching in due course.
Reviews for the RTS title aren’t an overly contributing factor to this with the new Warhammer game receiving a mixed to positive reception from players. Approximately 66% of players recommend the RTS title to others. So, it could be that there is simply a declining market for the genre and a slightly underwhelming launch for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
In our review of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin review, we thought the game was an "an Orking good time". We explained, "manages to expertly bring the world of Warhammer to life. With a plethora of gameplay and creation options at the players' disposal, there's something for the franchise's creatives and gamers alike."
It isn’t the first time we’ve seen Frontier in a spot of bother this year with layoffs being reported in October. The company has also entered a “hiring freeze” period in which no new staff will be added to the roster, contributing to an expected operating cost reduction of “up to 20%”.
With releases such as the anticipated F1 Manager 2023 already launching this year, it might be little surprising to see layoffs of this ilk occurring. However, with the industry as a whole facing some serious hardships it’s sadly becoming much more common practice for developers around the world.
Additionally, sales of the title shared a similar fate to Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin, not meeting company expectations once more. Now, it almost appears like the latter could be the straw that broke the camel’s back when share price is concerned.
While it’s never nice to see a game not quite hit the mark, it’s great to see that Frontier isn’t jumping ship on this one and hopefully we’ll see an uptick in popularity further down the line.