Colonist.io 2023 Summary
Hey Colonist Community,
This is our 5th year! Thank you for your ongoing support. Your passion and feedback fuels our mission to create the ultimate online settling experience.
- In 2023, we grew our playerbase by 1,000,000+
- Colonist became a multiplatform game by launching on Mobile and Discord Activities
Recap of 2023
| Category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly Active Players | 39K | 1.2M | 1M | 2M | 3.2M |
| Monthly Active Players | 7K | 127K | 111K | 199K | 288K |
| New Registered Players | 7K | 288K | 182K | 249K | 2.1M |
| Games Played | - | 13.8M | 19.3M | 25.3M | 33.4M |
| Years of Game Time | 37 | 461 | 535 | 675 | 874 |
| Peak Concurrent Players | 0.2K | 9K | 5.2K | 3.8K | 7.6K |
We started using average numbers for Monthly Active Players. Our best month, December, saw 1.3M Monthly Active Players. We also had a huge Discord Activity launch that same month.
Big Features
We built some of the most requested features:
- Mobile App on iOS & Android!
- Revamped trade system
- Added new keyboard shortcuts
- Karma filter setting for room games
- Fullscreen gameplay
In addition to the above features, we:
- Translated the game to 30 languages
- Added Apple & Discord login options
- Added Hover Mechanics: Click on the board to build
Development Stats
We went from updating every 2 weeks, to every week! With our new schedule we released 35 new versions.
| Category | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days in development | 830 | 1,195 | 1,560 | 1,925 |
| Public Versions | 97 | 122.1 | 149 | 180 |
| Suggestions done | 219 | 268 | 336 | 367 |
| Colonist Team members | 4 | 7 | 12 | 11 |
| Colonist Freelancers | - | - | 4 | 7 |
| Lines of TS code | 55K | 82K | 108K | 154K |
| Lines of TS tests | 21K | 24K | 33K | 35K |
| Code + Tests | 76K | 106K | 142K | 189K (21 books) |
This leads to different kinds of comparisons:
| Category | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players per line of code | 11 | 9 | 14 | 17 |
| Days played per line of code | 2.2 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.7 |
| Years played per resolved suggestion | 2 | 11 | 10 | 28 |
This shows that making changes, improving things, and fixing even small annoyances in the game is worth it. - Kovarex
Colonist Social Stats
| Category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discord Members | 2K | 18K | 15K | 24K | 29K |
| r/Colonist Members | 0.1K | 0.6K | 1K | 1.5K | 2.4K |
| Twitter Followers | 0.1K | 0.3K | 0.5K | 0.7K | 0.8K |
| Instagram Followers | 0.1K | 0.3K | 2.4K | 2.4K | 2.5K |
| Youtube Subscribers | 0K | 0.1K | 0.9K | 1K | 1K |
| Twitch Followers | 0 | 0.4K | 0.8K | 1.3K | 1.8K |
Our attention has primarily been on the game but Discord and Reddit have been growing at a solid pace!
We hosted our 3rd Colonist Con! Watch it on YouTube.
Colonist Community Stats
We love seeing our players post video and highlights. Here’s a look at some of their growth this year:
| Category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r/Catan Members | 23K | 35K | 44K | 65K | 102K |
| DyLighted - Catan | 2K | 24K | 46K | 59K | 67K |
| DyLighted Plays Catan | - | - | - | 8K | 12K |
| DandyDrew | - | - | - | - | 10K |
| ThePhantomCatan | - | - | - | 3.7K | 7.8K |
| Treeckosaurus Gaming | 0.4K | 1.8K | 2.7K | 3.3K | 3.8K |
| Elly Catan | - | - | - | 1K | 2.6K |
| TheWandererCatan | - | - | - | - | 1.9K |
| Total Youtuber Subscribers | 2K | 26K | 49K | 78K | 107K |
- The Catan community is growing a lot. Especially Reddit.
- DandyDrew came out of nowhere and placed himself as the 3rd top Youtube channel in his first year.
- This is not an exhaustive list of the community, only the most popular ones.
2024 Plans
Here is our public to-do list. Our primary focus this year will be to create a more welcoming platform for new players. We've seen that many players are interested in playing Colonist but don't know what Catan is. We want to address this problem and make the game easier to learn.
Some of the ways we plan to do this is:
- Adding a Beginner Mode
- Finishing mobile version
- Addressing issues raised by the community
Want to help us accomplish these goals? We're looking to increase the size of our team. Join Colonist now!
If you have friends, refer them. We give $2K referral rewards!