As there seems to be a bit of discussion cropping up again about how "BR Blue doesn't sell", I thought I would share the current earned trophy percentages from the PS5 version of TSW5, this info is displayed to all owners of the game on PS5, nothing secret. Below I've listed all DLC for TSW5 by what percentage of players have earned the most common trophy for each DLC, which I figure is a reasonable proxy for popularality of each DLC. For those wondering why the numbers are so low, I think a lot comes down to the 'free' starter pack, the core routes for TSW4 had a lot higher % of people earning something. Frankfurt Fulda: 15.1% of players drove the ICE-T for 100km WCML Euston - MK: 9.4% have completed the Class 350-1 Training Module San Bernadino: 7.6% have completed the MP36 Training Module WCML Preston - Carlisle: 1.9% of players drove the Class 87/0 for 87 miles Thomas and Friends: 1.9% completed the Thomas Tutorial Spoorlijn Zwolle - Groningen: 1.0% completed 3 services with the SNG 3 Ludwigsbahn Mannheim*: 0.9% completed the "Chemical Courier" scenario London Overground Mildmay: 0.9% completed the 378 training module Mittenwaldbahn Innsbruck: 0.6% drove the OBB 1020 for 102km MBTA Boston - Worcester: 0.6% drove the HSP46 for 46 miles Cardiff City Network*: 0.5% completed the Class 150 training module Numbers are slightly distorted by what trophies exist, for example completing 3 services on Spoorlijn takes more time than doing a tutorial. The two I've marked with * are because they have higher ranked trophies, but they are distance ones for trains that already existed before TSW5, for example 4.6% of people have driven the 425 for 42km, but anyone who owns the 425 from Hauptsrecke Rhein-Ruhr will have popped that trophy without needing to own Mannheim, only 0.7% have ever driven a Class 150 for 100 miles, which says all you need to know about West Cornwall Local and Cardiff City Network.
I'm not convinced that this is an accurate measure of popularity. The numbers are so small that you really can't draw any conclusions from them. Even as an approximation, it doesn't fly. And it's a real stretch to conclude that San Bernardino is 4 times more popular than WCMLoS. And, of course, like me, many players ( who knows how many ) don't give a fig about achievements and I, for instance, rarely venture into the training module and l doubt I'm the only one who finds it less than useful or complete. " A " for effort, but........
Fair enough, although it is very difficult not to earn at least one trophy when playing, for example if you haven't driven 46 miles in the HSP46 then you may as well have not bought the DLC. DTG share very little on player numbers, but when they do the core routes always top all the lists so San Bernadino being ahead of all the add-on DLCs doesn't surprise me.
The fact that percentages work off the total numbers of people who've loaded the base game even once make it really hard to get anything useful out of them when it comes to DLCs that most players of the game won't have tried. Free play weekends on games also count towards this, and over on XBox, Game Pass skews this even more, where it's much easier to install something and then decide you don't like it after 5 minutes, and uninstall. Not to mention the impact of the core pack with the Training Centre being free upon those numbers.
Its a bit like comparing apples and oranges with tutorial and distance driven achievements.Tutorials and especially those in the core package are liable to be completed by newer players, whereas older more experienced players will likely never even contemplate playing tutorials. You might get odd cases of a loco thats a pig to drive causing more people to attempt the tutorial. The distance driven achievements also vary wildly in their difficulty, 87 miles on the Class 87 I don't think is even the full length of the line and can probably be achieved in around an hour. 102 km with the OBB 1020 is going to take a fair bit longer on a line with a speed limit of 60kph! The similar older achievements are in some cases even worse! Overall it might give some vague trend but probably not the whole picture, in some cases the popularity of a route varies between systems, certain routes can be more popular on PC, while others may end up being more popular on xbox or Playstation.
Out of those who own both WCL and CCN, wouldn't the majority of already completed the 150 tutorial, which would count towards it being completed on CCN.
