Summary
- Artifact hit a peak of 14,000 players in December out of nowhere, and nobody is sure why.
- A popular theory is that it’s because bots are trying to get item drops to sell on the marketplace, although the marketplace doesn’t exist anymore.
- Other suggestions include masking pirated games, boosting playtime, and even a hidden Half-Life 3 playtest.
I remember when Valve first unveiled the Dota 2 trading card game Artifact in 2018, a moment easily on par with “Do you guys not have phones?” With everyone still wondering what had happened to Half-Life 2: Episode Three, the backlash was fierce and immediate.
Still, it launched to an impressive peak of 60,000 players. But in a matter of months, interest fell off a cliff. In 2019, it was hitting highs of 261, and lows of 142, numbers that only grew worse as the years marched on.
In 2021, when it was apparent that the game was well and truly dead with no hope of being revived, the revamped “Artifact Foundry” was released and the game was made free. However, as admitted by Valve itself, it was “an unfinished product”. So, to nobody’s surprise, it abandoned the game shortly after.
For years, Artifact has remained untouched, a blemish on Valve’s otherwise adored library. But as reported by Forbes, it just saw a bizarre spike of 14,000 players throughout December.
Bots, Pirates, Or Half-Life 3?
There’s no clear reason behind this, no apparent community push to bolster Artifact’s numbers and revive this spiritual successor to Ricochet (AKA a decent enough game that was comically overhated).
As Forbes speculates, it might be because of bots. Typically, they’re set up to get Steam Marketplace items like cards, but that doesn’t apply to Artifact anymore. Why then it would be flooded with bots is a mystery. Reddit user rassoln1k speculates that the reason might be as simple as players trying to increase their playtime.
However, Krillzone suggests that it might actually be players masking their pirated games as Artifact, although why the sudden boost in December is again unclear.
Another, more out there theory, is that it’s a smoke screen for the Half-Life 3 playtests that were reported earlier this week. One helluva way to repurpose Artifact if true, but the real answer is probably a lot less interesting than that. Maybe it’s the playtests for Ricochet 2.
Artifact is a digital collectible card game based on Valve’s popular Dota 2 MOBA, developed alongside Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield. Following criticism of being pay-to-win, it was reworked in 2020 before development ceased and it became free-to-play.