The 10-year-old 2D action RPG Secret of Magia has seen a significant boost in player count on Steam, prompting speculation about why this is happening right now. Its concurrent number of active Steam players has far surpassed anything Secret of Magia has managed in the past, and the fact that it has achieved this without any big new updates has left gamers confused.
Secret of Magia launched back in 2015 from Senpai Industrial Studios, a small publisher that between 2015 and 2017, published 21 titles on Steam. As a 2D RPG made with RPG Maker, Secret of Magia fits right in with the rest of its portfolio. According to its Steam description, the game allows players to “explore a huge world and free your people from the tyranny of an evil, supernatural dictator.” It’s certainly enough to spark curiosity, and the gameplay trailer gives off some serious old-school RPG vibes. Still, this doesn’t quite explain why this obscure 2015 role-playing game has suddenly climbed to new heights in the player count department.
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Secret of Magia Surges to New Player Count Heights, But No One is Sure Why
A Reddit thread started by user NagatoroGaming highlighted the fact that Secret of Magia has come from nowhere to rack up over 9,000 concurrent players on SteamDB. Since the thread was posted, the number has come close to the 10,000 mark, with an all-time peak of 9,915 at the time of writing. This makes for a massive 11,991.5% increase in players over the last 30 days. However, the best the 2D RPG had previously managed was just 3,218 concurrent players, a number it achieved back in November 2020. What is confusing gamers is that there’s seemingly no good reason for Secret of Magia to be enjoying a player count boost like this. It’s 10 years old, it hasn’t gone viral on social media, and its reviews aren’t particularly great. Reviews for the game are currently “Mixed,” with 51% of the 804 reviews being positive on Steam at the time of writing. There hasn’t even been a new patch for Secret of Magia since 2017, meaning it’s not down to new content, either.
Why Does Secret of Magia Have So Many Steam Players?
In the Reddit thread, the prevailing theory was simple: Steam Trading Card bots. Many cheap games have hordes of bots on Steam actively farming their Steam Trading Cards, which they can then sell for a profit. And while these cards may be extremely cheap in USD, currency conversion can make them valuable to others. It’s also worth pointing out that Secret of Magia has had Steam Trading Cards since launch, so it’s not clear as to why any potential bot farms would become active for the game right now. It is on sale for 72% at the moment, bringing it down to just $0.55, although it has been even cheaper in the past and still failed to beat these player count numbers. The nature of Steam makes it impossible to tell whether all these new players are actually bots, so it’s all down to speculation. The sudden drop (and complete recovery within 10 minutes) from over 9,000 players to just over 5,400 in its recent SteamDB charts makes for interesting reading, though.
Any gamer who wants to try out Secret of Magia has until December 16 to get it at its discounted price. The game, which sees players “explore a huge world, level up, and gain the strength to free your people from the tyrant’s grasp,” definitely looks like an interesting retro-style RPG, and for so cheap, it could be worth a look.
