DayZ is losing players as full release remains a distant prospect

With an exist from Steam Early Access still a long way off, players seem to be abandoning online zombie game DayZ.

The game came form nowhere to emerge as the big success of Christmas 2013 – despite being incomplete and receiving zero marketing. However, while it went on to sell over 3m copies a full release remains perhaps a year or more away, and it looks as if players are growing tired of the game’s slow development.

VentureBeat reports that fewer than 9,000 concurrent players are now playing the game at peak times. Only three months ago that number stood at 30k, while at its peak it reached 45k.

Rival online title Rust has grown from 9k concurrent peak users earlier this year to around 26k last month, while Daybreak’s H1Z1 has overcome many of its early problems to pass 1m sales and overtake DayZ’s numbers.

Users have lamented the slow update schedule and claimed that even when they do arrive, new content has a habit of causing technical disruption to the existing game. One even went as far to say: Unfortunately this is going to be the poster child for why you don’t listen to your community when it comes [to] releasing things too early.”

Will an appetite for the title still remain whenever it eventually hits consoles?