From my experiences in games such as TF2, I have learned that Steam Charts isn't always accurate especially since Steam Charts doesnt take into account bots for instance.
So I'm wondering if the Steam Charts are accurate for CS Source and if not what is a more reliable way of checking the player count.
So about a few months ago I made a post regarding the current status of TF2 fans, and this was to answer this exact question which
Most fans at least here are semi active meaning they play TF2 but not often which is pretty normal, but the reason why this still intrigues me is that do you guys realise that their is a contrasting difference between the Internet space in YT and the game's actual performance.
Now this will come as a surprise to some of you but when it comes to concurrent players, not counting the bots we only get 5-10k players. This is sourced from Community Quickplay.tf. Which is good especially for a game that's nearly 2 decades old, and is barely supported, but yall have to admit TF2 isn't as big as it used to be especially compared to the big games like Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, Valorant etc. which get 100k-1m concurrent players everyday. And before anyone mentions it the numbers on Steam Charts is often inaccurate since a huge portion of the players overthere are bots.
Now this isnt a jab on TF2 because honestly if I were going to be real TF2 will never ever reach the peaks it did in 2011-2015 ever again, especially with all the issues it currently has, plus it doesn't really matter anyways. What matters is that the game still has players, and as long as people continue playing the game then that's nice, and most importantly is still relevant in my eyes.
Anyway what's weird about it though is I feel like despite the smaller player count ,TF2 content is still alive and kicking. In fact projects like Emesis Blue and Server Blight, still gets millions and there are still content creators who still do very well with TF2.
Granted TF2 isn't as popular on YT compared to what it was 5 years ago for instance, but it still does insane.
Overall if you still look at TF2 through an outsiders perspective aka through the lense of the content only then you'd think TF2 is this hugely popular game that is still relevant, so you'd think that would reflect in the game but as I pointed out again it only gets around 5-10k.
So it kinda makes me wonder when looking at the wider Internet space do these TF2 fans play TF2?
Also I would like to end off by saying if you are one of those fans who don't play TF2, then that's fine. You can enjoy TF2 for aspects like the fanmade content, artstyle, lore, etc. your still just as valid for liking TF2 than everyone else. The point of the post was mainly to point out how I find it weird that there is a contrast between TF2's actual performance vs it's relevancy on the wider Internet.