Alyx Estimate: 8-12% of Compatible Install Base Playing Half-Life VR Game

Half-Life: Alyx has been a huge hit VR game since its launch yesterday, attracting a peak user concurrency of nearly 43,000 on Steam -- by far the highest concurrency for any VR-only game on the platform. (Beat Saber, the previous VR-only blockbuster, reached only as high as 4,472 concurrent players on Steam.) Over its first 24 hours of launch, it's probably attracted 150,000-250,000 total players.

Next question: How many owners of compatible VR headsets have bought and played Half-Life: Alyx so far? That takes some rough guesswork, but 8-12% of the potential install base is a safe estimate. Here's the datapoint:

• There's about a million Alyx-compatible VR devices connected to Steam.
• There's about a million Oculus Quest devices on the market (assuming sales kept pace of its 2019 sales), and Alyx can be played on a Quest when it's connected to a PC running Oculus Link.

So about 2 million people can potentially play Half-Life:Alyx, and about 150,000-250,000 of them are currently doing so. However, there's probably a lot more Alyx owners who haven't gotten around to playing yet. (What with it launching on a weekday, and that whole global pandemic thing happening right outside.)

Will be interesting to see how that concurrency fares over the coming weekend, and how many sales Alyx ultimately brings in.

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

The numbers could be skewed a little as well: I own the game just because it came free with my preorder of a Valve Index headset, but I don't particularly have an interest in playing it.

But I might play it anyway just because it's on my account.

[FlipperPA]

A ton of people have been buying Valve Indexes the past few weeks, since they re-opened orders for it. Three of my colleagues, for starters. We've watched the shipping estimates go from 2 weeks, to 4, to 6, and now at least 8 weeks.

That install base you're referencing could be a bit larger than when you first did the calculations, but I think Valve really missed a big opportunity being out of stock for so long.

[Anonymous]

Oh I ordered within the minute of them going on sale and was told 8 weeks. Most people will be waiting far longer.