How many people play Escape from Tarkov? — 2023 statistics

Escape from Tarkov has an average player count of 250,000.

(Source: MMO Stats)

• These numbers are estimates as only the publisher of the game can provide accurate information for player counts.
• Its highest player count in 2023 was on January 13th, with an estimated 512,900 players.
• Its lowest player count was on November 2nd, 2022, with an estimated 104,700 players.
• The highest average player count for Escape from Tarkov was in January 2023 at 461,800.
• The lowest average player count for Escape from Tarkov was in November 2022 at 113,400.

The first thing we have to take a look at is the player count for Escape from Tarkov. Even though some of you might not have heard of the game, it is still quite popular and manages to maintain a consistent player count of approximately 250,000 on a regular basis. Of course, this is less than half of the player count that the game had in January of 2023 with over 500,000. Fluctuations happen but Escape from Tarkov has not experienced many dips in its player base, so we can expect this number to rise considerably.

Battlestate Games made $120 million in revenue in 2020.

(Sources: Reddit, Company Information)

• The total revenue of the company went up by nearly 140% between 2019 and 2020.
• The company’s revenue was $109.9 million in 2019.
• When you combine the profits of 2019 and 2020, it adds up to $200 million.

Even though Battlestate Games is a relatively small company compared to some of the heavy hitters in the gaming industry like Rockstar and Electronic Arts, they have still managed to accumulate a considerable amount of money through Escape from Tarkov. Companies don’t really have a habit of releasing all of their fiscal information, so the information here is liable to change, but it still provides us with a solid reference point to gauge the overall success of the company.

Escape from Tarkov has a serious cheating problem.

(Source: Gamerant)

• Having a cheating problem in your game is more than likely to disrupt its reach and appeal to the player base.
• Battlestate Games has stated that they place special priority on handling the cheating situation.
• This is not a problem exclusive to BSG, as developers like EA and Activision also have issues when it comes to cheating players.
• The Escape from Tarkov subreddit is filled with clips of cheaters and the posters are complaining about it relentlessly.

Like many games today, Escape from Tarkov is suffering from a strong cheater population that regularly makes it hard to earnest players to enjoy the game to the fullest. The subreddit for the game is constantly pelted with clips of people cheating, as well as text posts scolding the developers for not doing anything about it.

Battlestate Games has been banning thousands of cheaters in ban waves.

(Sources: PC Gamer, Future Game Releases)

• When Escape from Tarkov reached 200,000 concurrent players, BSG banned 3,000 cheaters in a wave and reset the progression of the game.
• In 2022, they upped the ante and banned 9,000 cheaters in a single wave.
• Nikita Buyanov, the CEO of EFT tweeted the news and suggested that he was delighted with the result.
• Escape from Tarkov upgraded its anti-cheater policy by utilizing BattlEye, after which the cheating problem was reduced, but not gone entirely.
• This software is much more invasive than their usual methods of removing cheaters, so we might see some real improvement soon.

In response to the inexcusable number of cheaters in Escape from Tarkov, the developers of the game have started implementing ban waves that systematically remove thousands of cheaters from the game in a single day. This is excellent news for the players that want to play the game as it was intended. The Reddit community rejoices whenever a wave happens because they get to see cheater forums implode in rage and panic.

50.3% of Escape from Tarkov players perished in the New Year 2022 event.

(Source: NME)

• 56.6 million players managed to survive.
• 57.3 million players did not survive the event.
• 106.9 million Scavs were killed.
• 658,229 Christmas trees were built in the hideout.
• 1.9 million items were crafted at the Christmas tree.
• 1.2 million ornaments were found.
• Fans spent 82.4 million hours watching the EFT category on Twitch.
• 15.7 million Drops were received.
• There were 475,546 peak viewers in the EFT category.
• There were 1.6 million unique viewers on Battlestate Games broadcasts.
• 350 gifts were given away on those broadcasts.

Seasonal events are a great way for developers to treat their players to something fresh and exciting, and BSG came up with an excellent idea of introducing a New Year 2022 event where players could compete with each other, and BSG tallied the information into one infographic for all to see. From the information presented, we can see that users managed to rake in a lot of achievements, such as a huge number of Scav kills and some notable viewership of the event on Twitch.

A scammer made an Escape from Tarkov Steam page to trick users.

(Sources: NME, Twitter)

• Escape from Tarkov cannot be purchased on any platform except for the publisher’s site.
• The fake steam page includes screenshots, videos, and realistic information that could convince people it is real.
• The “game” is selling for £37.99.
• When starting the game up, you will see a low-effort 2D game.
• BSG and Steam have not addressed this issue yet.

This is something that caught the community off-guard because BSG never revealed any plans to release a Steam version of Escape from Tarkov, so when people saw their favorite game on their favorite platform, many of them chose to purchase the game only to find they were playing a poorly-made 2D game. This sparked outrage in the community, but the developers of EFT have not yet addressed this, and there have been no statements made by Steam regarding the issue.

Streets of Tarkov, the newest EFT map, is out and it’s huge.

(Source: NME)

• The Streets of Tarkov update launched with a progression wipe and some more miscellaneous additions to the game.
• The update changed the base elements of the game to be more oriented to urban warfare.
• The fighting in the streets of Tarkov is intense and fast-paced, more so than the base game.
• Players have said that they really enjoy the map and the update, although there are some minor issues with it.

This is a bit of a step in the opposite direction for BSG because the gameplay of Streets of Tarkov is much more fast-paced than the base game, but fans have still praised the update and the new map on many platforms. The map is massive, although it is set in a part of Tarkov, so players have enough room to roam and loot as much as they want with a unified goal in mind.

An Escape from Tarkov developer faced backlash after banning a player for killing him.

(Sources: Dexerto, Reddit)

• The banned individual complained about the issue on Reddit.
• He provided the community with a recording of the incident, where the player killed the developer and was banned moments later.
• One commenter on the Reddit post said that they shared the incident on the EFT Discord. He was also banned.
• Another developer reached out and said that it was a false alarm.
• However, the player lost his progress in the process.

The controversy surrounding Escape from Tarkov’s cheater population is one thing, but you would usually not expect an EFT developer to be the bad guy in this situation. Reddit user Interesting_Ad_1513 killed an EFT developer who promptly banned him, resulting in a very popular Reddit post that reached the Top 5 most popular EFT posts on the subreddit. Shortly after the incident, BSG reached out and said that the issue was resolved and that it was a false alarm ban.

The PUBG developers are working on an Escape from Tarkov rival game.

(Source: The Loadout)

• This information was provided by Krafton and they stated that their new game has the code name Project Black Budget.
• It is supposed to be a direct rival to the titans of the extraction shooter genre like Escape from Tarkov and Warzone DMZ.
• The developers will be working on the project based on their experience with PUBG.
• The supported platforms for the game have not been confirmed yet, and Krafton has stated that they are still considering which platforms to include.
• Based on available information, it is implied that Project Black Budget will be a 2025 release.

Following the developer’s strong financial success, Krafton has confirmed that a new game is in the works for the studio and that it is going to rival games like Escape from Tarkov, focusing its experience from PUBG to create a well-rounded extraction shooter. This is good news for the gaming industry but is it good news for Escape from Tarkov, the game that could be dethroned as the best extraction shooter available? Time will tell.

Escape from Tarkov players had to collect in-game funds to bring in-game traders back.

(Source: NME)

• The event started with Battlestate Games removing traders and the Flea Market as a response to “threats by the Lightkeeper”.
• The only way to bring back traders was to gather roubles and bring them to the Lightkeeper.
• BSG also created a website that provided players with live tracking of the total number of roubles collected.

While this does sound like something negative at first glance, it is nothing regarding cheaters. In actuality, BSG created an event where core aspects of the game such as trading and the Flea Market were removed, and a new character called the Lightkeeper was introduced. Players had to collect money and give it to the Lightkeeper, whose tally was being kept online. This was a very unique event that had players collaborating to accumulate all of the funds.

The Escape from Tarkov esports scene has awarded $114,600 in prize money.

(Source: Esports Earnings)

• The money was awarded across four tournaments.
• All of the tournaments were organized through Twitch Rivals.
• The tournaments had prize pools ranging from $30,000 to $27,300.
• The most successful Escape from Tarkov player is Paul “Pestily”, who has won $4,000 across two of the EFT tournaments.

It is apparent that Escape from Tarkov does not have the best esports scene when compared to other popular shooters that are similar to it, but the game still accumulated over $100,000 in prize pools, which is still good. When it comes to the players who participate in these tournaments, they are quite successful, with Paul “Pestily” winning $4,000 across two tournaments. The earnings aren’t as important as the fact that Paul is making money playing the game he loves.

Escape from Tarkov had 305 million hours watched on Twitch in 2022.

(Source: SullyGnome)

• The game had 8 million broadcasting hours.
• There were, on average, 34,886 viewers watching the game.
• There were, on average, 923 channels streaming the game.
• It had a viewer ratio of 37.8.
• Its max viewer count was 690,725.
• It was #14 based on the average viewer count.
• It was #18 based on the peak viewer rank.
• It was #18 based on the average channel rank.
• It was #29 based on the peak channel rank.

The final line of stats that we have for you is regarding Escape from Tarkov’s Twitch performance throughout 2022, and the numbers are staggering. Like, absolutely massive compared to what you would usually expect from a game from such a small studio. The game had over 305 million broadcasting hours in 2022, which is half of Fortnite’s tally, but that is a much bigger and more popular game. The future bodes well for the future of Escape from Tarkov, and we can’t wait to see where these numbers are at next year!

To sum up

Would you look at that, time for another wipe! That would be all we have to say about this fantastic game and everything it has accomplished since it was first made available to the public in 2016. Since then, it has grown into a representative titan of the extraction shooter genre, climbing the ranks of Twitch and the gaming industry as a whole. Even though it has its fair share of problems, many games have them as well, and from what we have said, it is apparent that Battlestate Games is trying its best to address and solve them. As it stands currently, Escape From Tarkov has a very bright future ahead of itself and we can’t see how the game stands a few years from now. We hope that this has been helpful to you and that you have learned something new!