Lost Ark Loses More Than 300k Players After Ban Wave: Was it All Bots?
The recent bot ban wave in June has led to Lost Ark losing have of its playerbase, or did it?
Lost Ark became a worldwide hit and one of the most popular MMOs ever to exist when it launched in February. You can see the game regularly top Steam Charts as the #1 title that’s most played on Steam. However, circumstances have changed—Lost Ark has had to accept a severe slump in player numbers after conducting a massive ban wave across their servers. In the aftermath, the game has hit its lowest concurrent player count, losing over 600,000 “players” as of June 2022—that’s 76% of Lost Ark’s player base. From a high of 550,000 to 205,366 players based on what we see in Steam Charts, the ban was initiated by the latest update. Can players finally farm Lost Ark currency in peace? Or is it possible for actual humans to get swept by the current of the ban?
The Announcement of Lost Ark’s Bot Ban Wave
The idea of doing a massive player exodus first surfaced in Lost Ark’s official forum, where Amazon Gaming Studios announced that they were doing a large-scale ban on bots that would lower the queue times and player count. It isn’t AGS’ first time doing a ban on their games, but they seem to forget that botters could quickly adapt to the changes that would make. Botters can easily evade the ban and start farmingLost Ark gold again once everything subsides. As a result, AGS has been battling the ongoing bot problem for some time now. The topic of botting has been everywhere—whether through major patch updates or multiple official blog posts. This cat and mouse chase between the botters and the developers have been ongoing for several months.
How Bots Are A Major Issue
The best way to summarize how the botting issue works in Lost Ark is that it’s like a virus—it spreads everywhere. Before Lost Ark was released in the West, it had a healthy playerbase in Russia and South Korea, having been on those shores for a while. When the western version of Lost Ark launched, the botters had a pre-existing botting ecosystem ready to go. Needless to say, these botters were sharpening their fangs in preparation for Lost Ark’s launch to the West.
The botting problem also created a couple of unwanted side effects too. Many websites specializing in real money trading (RMT) flourished due to the hundreds of thousands of bots running around the servers. These bots generate in-game wealth by running around and farming Lost Ark gold and materials.
You might be asking, “how is that a bad thing?”. Here’s the schtick: when you leave bots to farm materials and resources 24/7, they’ll begin injecting excessive currency into the game. An inflated amount of gold leads to inflation, and soon players will find themselves unable to buy the things they need because the Lost Ark items are way out of their budget zone. While this may not be a problem to some of you who can invest a lot of time in playing Lost Ark or buy tons of gold for your needs, the situation severely affects the casual players.
Are Lost Ark’s Players Really That Many?
The botting problem has led Lost Ark’s community to speculate on the “real population” of their game. Of course, it’s impossible to know the exact numbers and figures, but the shift in the player count after the ban is just too significant not to notice. Even in March 2022, when Amazon removed an exploitable gold farming method, over 200k players were cut off. This indicates the number of bots present during that time, and the “true” number of players may be much smaller than we thought. It’s unachievable to find an exact number of actual players either, as websites like SteamDB and Steamchart, while helpful, aren’t official trackers; thus, their numbers can be a tad off the mark.
The Community’s Thoughts About the Ban Wave
Users on well-known hangouts such as Discord and Reddit are generally happy about the recent purge. It’s probably the most triumphant celebration we’ve seen in Lost Ark. Many have noticed that there are fewer, if not no, bots hanging about in their servers, and the login for the game is much faster than before. But before you pick up your party hats and poppers, we must remember that the battle is still ongoing.
Not to sound like a wet blanket, but botters are extremely crafty—so much so that they can skirt around some loopholes to get around their bans. Additionally, legitimate players were likely hit by the wave as well. The affected players can appeal their exclusion to Amazon’s support team, but the tediousness of doing so can be understandably frustrating.
The battle isn’t over—not by a long shot. Only time will tell if the bans are permanent, and it remains to be seen whether AGS’ actions will have long-term effects. But for now, players can enjoy a (mostly) bot-free experience when farming Lost Ark currency.
