It's hard for me to take it that way when the author is citing player count numbers in the headline as though that matters at all in a game with finite content and a low cost of entry. Even you using the word "engagement" in what's meant to be an innocent way just has me thinking about how live service games have poisoned the way people speak and think about video games.

I can't think of a game that I've played and enjoyed that had an "end game" except rolling credits, and that's totally fine. Flashes in the pan are totally fine. The game can't "die" as long as a single person wants to play it, because it's playable regardless of the presence of the company's servers.

You are right, but is it any different for games like Ark, Conan, VRising, Rust or any other sandbox builder focused on multiplayer? It's always just a farm-build-collect-repeat cycle. It's why I get bored of them easily at least, the only games in that genre that can usually keep my attention are Factorio and Valheim.

I remember when it wasn't full of cheaters, didn't require an epic account and only sold items for wins.

It was all about Shotgun Roulette last week

That one is a special case. Yes, it got completely annihilated in numbers by even the goose goose duck clone, but, the thing is, the majority of its userbase just started playing on Mobile (where the game is free) well before the game left its popularity peak. So, the steam numbers are hardly representative of its playerbase, and the app's download count shows it.

PUBG did not have a similar story at the time of its release, but does right now. It's one of the most played games in the world... On chinese phones, so, uh, kind of invisible depending where we're looking for. To put it into perspective: PUBG straight up dethroned the biggest, most profitable shooter in the world Crossfire, by splitting the population, and the takeaway there most people would have is "What the hell is a Crossfire????".