Red Dead Online was heavily anticipated due to the massive success of the single-player campaign, Red Dead Redemption 2, which was both the best-selling game of 2018 in the United States and Rockstar’s second highest-selling game to date.
Unfortunately, Red Dead Redemption’s 2 rich and interactive world didn’t quite transfer as much to Red Dead Online, and some players deemed the game underwhelming and lacking at the time.
Although more content has been added to Red Dead Online over the last couple of years, it hasn’t been enough to shake players’ sour first impressions of the game. From almost completely empty lobbies to players dressing up as clowns to protest against the lack of updates the game has received, Red Dead Online hardly seems to be booming with life.
So, just how many people play Red Dead Online in 2021? Let’s dive into that very question.
Red Dead Online Active Player Figures: On the Decline?
The Red Dead Online beta first released publically on November 30th, 2018, though players who’d bought the Ultimate Edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 or played during the launch month got access to the game a few days earlier.
While the game featured the huge open world map from Red Dead Redemption 2, some features were missing or otherwise stripped back, including various bugs, an imbalanced reward system, and the omission of mini-games like poker.
Red Dead Online came out of beta in May 2019, finally adding poker, as well as dynamic events, new free-roam and co-op missions, a new showdown mode, among others.
Despite bringing in more things to do, Red Dead Online still failed to attract new players, as well as in recent months. According to Steam Charts, Red Dead Online had an average of 11,324 active players in December 2020, with a peak of 18,417.
Red Dead Redemption 2 launched on PC on November 5th, 2019, which included the online mode, so Steam monthly active figures prior to December 2020 combine the two games. Red Dead Online as a standalone game launched in December 2020, which is why the Steam active players figure only dates back to then.
In comparison, Grand Theft Auto 5 had an average of a staggering 106,914 active players in the same month, with a peak of 258,539.
Despite this figure combining both players of GTA Online and the campaign, it’s probably safe to assume that the majority of these players are playing the latter given that Grand Theft Auto 5 was released 8 years ago. Furthermore, GTA Online has seen a spike in popularity over the last year.
Since December 2020, Red Dead Online’s monthly active players has decreased by almost two thirds, going from 9,499 in January 2021 to just 3,927 in August 2021. Again, if you compare this to Grand Theft Auto 5’s active players on Steam in August 2021, it’s sitting at 129,354, which is a 14.48% increase from the previous month.
Red Dead Online’s monthly active player figures are limited to Steam, so there’s no way to estimate how many players are playing on console or via other digital gaming platforms like Epic Games Store and Rockstar Games Launcher.
However, Steam is the largest distributor of digital PC games, so it’s likely the majority of PC players of Red Dead Online bought the game via it.
Additionally, Red Dead Redemption 2’s player base is bigger on PC than on console as of February 2021. On PC, total sales of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online for January 2021 and December 2020 was almost 2 million, compared to 600,000 on console for the same two months.
Furthermore, console players of Red Dead Online have been migrating to PC, with the jump between platforms likely influenced by a more active community, private RP servers, and other private servers offering mods that allow you buy wagons, equip new hairstyles, and more.
Although Red Dead Redemption 2 has a decent following on PC, Red Dead Online’s Steam monthly active players is pretty low compared to many other online games, including GTA Online, Minecraft, and Fortnite.
Red Dead Online’s active player figures have been declining throughout 2021, indicating that the game’s player base could continue to drop further in the future.
In addition, despite the game having more content now than at launch, the stuff that is there is arguably pretty insubstantial and unexciting compared to GTA Online, which still receives frequent minor and major updates even though it came out almost a decade ago.
Sadly, this can’t be said the same for Red Dead Online, with many players believing Rockstar has abandoned the game.
Red Dead Online On Twitch
Alongside a relatively monthly active player count, Red Dead Online doesn’t get a lot of viewers on Twitch. The average number of concurrent viewers for Red Dead Online and Red Dead Redemption 2 on the platform is around 3,000 per month, though this number has increased slightly to around 4,000 viewers in August 2021.
Similarly to GTA Online, there isn’t a separate listing on Twitch for Red Dead Online, so average viewers for both the single-player campaign and the online mode are combined into one.
However, if you browse through the directory for the game, a large portion of streamers are playing Red Dead Online, particularly on PC.
Interestingly, aside from the launch month, October 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 has always had extremely low views on Twitch. The game went from an average of 102,000 average concurrent viewers in October 2018 to 21,200 in November 2018, then 4,600 the following month.
Through February 2019 to August 2019, concurrent viewers were under 1,000, with April 2019 being the lowest at just 449.
The most concurrent viewers Red Dead Redemption 2 has had on Twitch is 382,763 on October 28th, 2018, a peak it will likely never reach again, seeing how it’s struggled to maintain over 3,000 viewers in the last year.
Red Dead Online Revenue Over Time
Red Dead Redemption 2 has been extremely profitable for Take-Two Interactive, having sold over 38 million copies as of August 2021. The franchise as a whole, including the original Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Online, has shifted over 60 million units.
According to Gamespot, the first Red Dead Redemption had shipped more than 14 million units by August 2015. Adding the sales figures for both games together gives you 52 million, so as a very rough estimate, Red Dead Online has contributed around 8 million sales to the overall number of units sold for the franchise, though it’s not clear if Red Dead Revolver or Undead Nightmare factors into these figures at all.
Take-Two’s total revenue for the second quarter ending September 30th, 2020 for fiscal year 2021 was $841.1 million, a decrease by 2% for the same quarter the previous year, though is following the pandemic “boom”.
Overall digital revenue reached $711.3 million and made up 85% of the publisher’s total revenue. The main contributors to this revenue were NBA 2K20, NBA 2K1, GTA Online, and both Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online.
That said, the exact amount of money Red Dead Online brought in for this quarter wasn’t made known. Given GTA Online earned Two-Two over $1 billion in 2020, it’s not too hard to figure out who Take-Two Interactive’s biggest asset is.
In the company’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 ending on March 31, 2021, Take Two’s GAAP net revenue was $3.373 billion, though the main contributors were again NBA 2K1, NBA 2K20, and GTA Online.
GTA Online had the second-highest quarter for recurrent spending between January and March 2021, and Red Dead Online was also revealed to have done better than expected.
Take-Two Interactive have mentioned that their increase in revenue recently is likely due to more people staying at home — expect to be hearing that a lot over the next year.
The Future of Red Dead Online
Red Dead Online’s future doesn’t look particularly great, based on its low active monthly player count and lack of interest on Twitch. While Two-Two name Red Dead Online as one of their main contributors to their recent revenue, the latter two points seem to counteract this, especially as so many other games in the company’s library, like GTA Online, are thriving and are bringing in huge profits.
Additionally, Red Dead Online has suffered from game-breaking bugs and glitches that hinder players’ experience from the start, including horses vanishing while being ridden and PS4 data being corrupted, to name just some.
Significant updates are also few and far between, with many players believing Rockstar has abandoned the game. As mentioned earlier, some players dressed up as clowns in protest against the lack of updates, while the game’s playerbase decreasing is the surest sign yet that Red Dead Online is in trouble.
Compared to GTA Online, which frequently gets DLC and patches adding new vehicles, items, missions, modes, etc, to the game, it’s unfortunate that Red Dead Online isn’t given the same support.
Red Dead Online possibly could have had the same success and acclaim as GTA Online if it hadn’t been so poorly managed from the get-go and, as many players believe, neglected by its developer.
Unless drastic improvements are made to Red Dead Online over the next few years (or even months), the game’s future – if it even has one long-term – is looking pretty bleak.
Red Dead Online is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Stadia.
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