What is the percentage of players that have installed at least one mod?

[shuzen]

Hi,

I'm just curious about this, because this came up in a discussion about the percentage of steam achievements, where someone noted that apparently only 1.9% of players have 'won' SpaceAge by reaching the solar system edge, and another replied that probably many players use mods and disable achievements by that.

If a Wube dev reads this: do you have numbers about the percentage of players that use mods? Would you share?

Thanks!

[Tertius]

I asked Copilot to give an estimate.

My prompt was this:

Do you have any idea what percentage of Factorio players use mods? There is certainly no exact information, so in this case you may guess and answer imprecisely, unlike my usual preference for strictly accurate answers.

And lo and behold, thus spoke the Copilot oracle:

How many Factorio players use mods?

There are no exact numbers, but based on Steam achievement data, Mod Portal statistics, and typical player behavior, a realistic estimate looks like this:

• Players who have used mods at least once: ~70–85%
• Regular mod users: ~50–70%
• Mostly‑vanilla players: ~15–30%

Factorio has a large proportion of players who finish vanilla and then move on to QoL mods, overhauls, or full modpacks (e.g., Krastorio, SE, B&A, Pyanodon). Even niche mods often reach very high download counts, which supports the idea that mod usage is widespread.

Short version: Roughly two‑thirds of active Factorio players use mods at least occasionally.

I support the reasoning, however it's definitely not clear how accurate the numbers are. Since it's super easy to use a mod, I guess the numbers are not that wrong.

Personally, I'm one of the players who first finished vanilla without mods, then used QoL mods ever since. No overhaul mods. It seems I'm a mainstream player.

[meganothing]

I asked Copilot to give an estimate.

My prompt was this:

Do you have any idea what percentage of Factorio players use mods? There is certainly no exact information, so in this case you may guess and answer imprecisely, unlike my usual preference for strictly accurate answers.

And lo and behold, thus spoke the Copilot oracle:

How many Factorio players use mods?

There are no exact numbers, but based on Steam achievement data, Mod Portal statistics, and typical player behavior, a realistic estimate looks like this:

• Players who have used mods at least once: ~70–85%
• Regular mod users: ~50–70%
• Mostly‑vanilla players: ~15–30%

Factorio has a large proportion of players who finish vanilla and then move on to QoL mods, overhauls, or full modpacks (e.g., Krastorio, SE, B&A, Pyanodon). Even niche mods often reach very high download counts, which supports the idea that mod usage is widespread.

Short version: Roughly two‑thirds of active Factorio players use mods at least occasionally.

I support the reasoning, however it's definitely not clear how accurate the numbers are. Since it's super easy to use a mod, I guess the numbers are not that wrong.

Personally, I'm one of the players who first finished vanilla without mods, then used QoL mods ever since. No overhaul mods. It seems I'm a mainstream player.

Seems to me a good way to be asking for a halluzination.

In my understanding "Regular mod users" and "Mostly vanilla players" should add up to 100%, but they don't. What additonal category of player is Copilot dreaming about here?

[Stargateur]

> full modpacks (e.g., Krastorio, SE, B&A, Pyanodon)

Are not modpacks but overall mod,there is actually few modpack, being so easy to install mod on factorio most people hand pick mod themself, thus, I should really do modpack now... switch between space age or vanilla I don't use the same base mod list anymore :p But that show copilot is saying inaccurate information already

I think there are around 3.5 M copy of factorio sold at least, the most downloaded mod of all time is Alien Biomes with 681k download across ALL versions, long lasting version of alien biome download count are around 200k, so around 5.7% of people who buy factorio downloaded alien biome.

That say with steam success we can see the best success is at 64.5% rate, this mean at most this % of player played the game at least few minute... so it's very hard to estimate real player count. Also we could talk about regular player that probably is the most important players for the game. Since space age game regular are about 25k players every day. I bet these people almost all use mods.

So I would say that around 11% of the people who really played the game used at least one mod, than if we talk about people who at least finished the game once (people who send a fish to space 7.4% on steam), 262k people finish the game and here we fall around the 200k of people who download alien biome, so I would say most people (80%) who at least finish vanilla factorio downloaded one mod.

[meganothing]

> full modpacks (e.g., Krastorio, SE, B&A, Pyanodon)

Are not modpacks but overall mod,there is actually few modpack, being so easy to install mod on factorio most people hand pick mod themself, thus, I should really do modpack now... switch between space age or vanilla I don't use the same base mod list anymore :p But that show copilot is saying inaccurate information already

I think there are around 3.5 M copy of factorio sold at least, the most downloaded mod of all time is Alien Biomes with 681k download across ALL versions, long lasting version of alien biome download count are around 200k, so around 5.7% of people who buy factorio downloaded alien biome.

That say with steam success we can see the best success is at 64.5% rate, this mean at most this % of player played the game at least few minute... so it's very hard to estimate real player count. Also we could talk about regular player that probably is the most important players for the game. Since space age game regular are about 25k players every day. I bet these people almost all use mods.

So I would say that around 11% of the people who really played the game used at least one mod, than if we talk about people who at least finished the game once (people who send a fish to space 7.4% on steam), 262k people finish the game and here we fall around the 200k of people who download alien biome, so I would say most people (80%) who at least finish vanilla factorio downloaded one mod.

If Alien Biome was downloaded 681k times and there were say 50 updates to it and people who played it regularily downloaded on average 20 of those updates, then Alien Biome counts only for 681k/20 = 34k users. Fact is, there is no easy way to estimate the percentage with the publicly known information

[Nidan]

If Alien Biome was downloaded 681k times and there were say 50 updates to it and people who played it regularily downloaded on average 20 of those updates, then Alien Biome counts only for 681k/20 = 34k users.

The mod portal explicitly says: "Downloaded by: 681K users", which I believe are distinct users. One could compare it with the numbers you get from the metrics tab (Alien biomes') and see if the numbers add up. Although there might be some inaccuracies for mods older than Dec 2022. (Read the tooltip for both the release downloads and mod downloads buttons)

[Stargateur]

If Alien Biome was downloaded 681k times and there were say 50 updates to it and people who played it regularily downloaded on average 20 of those updates, then Alien Biome counts only for 681k/20 = 34k users. Fact is, there is no easy way to estimate the percentage with the publicly known information

that why I didn't take the download number of 681k It's hard to say if the number is correct cause before mod portal didn't count by user. I think I was already fair by using 200k, if the number of 681k is correct than in theory all my estimation go up... so I was actually being conservative in my number. If we use raw number 19.5% of people who buy the game downloaded alien biome. And that number seem okay for me. I wouldn't be surprise. As I say any player who must have player factorio more than 100 hours must have downloaded at least one mod.

[TauPlays]

Don't forget that even having a single non-"official" mod will disable achievements. I usually only use squeak-through and throughput calculator on all my saves since I bought the game so my achievements are very lacking

[shuzen]

Tertius, thanks for asking Copilot, but yeah, I'm not so sure on what its estimation is based. Without a clear reasoning behind it this just feels like guess work.

And good thinking, I also checked the numbers for the Alien Biomes mod (you can see the download numbers for the individual versions on the mods download page (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/alien-biomes/downloads) btw.), but I think it's hard to guess realistic numbers from that alone. There are thousands of mods, each with sometimes dozens of versions; many players might never have used Alien Biomes but plenty of other mods instead, and it's kinda impossible to say how all the different mods map to the probably more than five million players over the last ten years.

I can't work out an estimation that I'd believe myself in with so many unknowns. I wonder if Wube has actual data on this.

Thanks for all your input so far!

[Tertius]

Tertius, thanks for asking Copilot, but yeah, I'm not so sure on what its estimation is based. Without a clear reasoning behind it this just feels like guess work.

In my opinion, it's a quite valid guess that can be a good starting point for a discussion about mod usage. Not verified numbers but an educated guess. It's about the same order of magnitude as I would estimate myself if I answered the question. I would give slightly lower numbers (just up to 50%, not up to 85%), but this is as much an estimate as the KI answer. I wouldn't base a business plan on it, but it's definitely more than "we don't know".

[shuzen]

The thing is, I would have guessed about 20 to 30 percent of players use mods, so I'd land on the other end of ChatGPT.

Why 20 to 30 percent?

Because I believe, if you'd ask in this forum or in r/factorio how many people modded their game at some time you'd end up with 80 to 90 percent of people saying yes.

But in both those places you only find actual fans of the game and not the typical Factorio player. If the game has sold let's say: 5 million copies (it was 3.5 at the start of 2023, and it apparently sold 500k per year (https://80.lv/articles/factorio-sales-s ... ion-copies)), then I believe that it's not unrealistic that 3 or 4 million players played the game for one base (if they even started it) and after that moved on. I think most casual players won't even know what mods are, and they'd never care enough to actually use them.

And then you have 1 or 2 million players who invest more time, participate on this forum or on reddit, become fans and actually start playing over and over again. And most of them will use mods at some point. But these people are not the majority of players. We only think we are, because we only see ourselves on the internet and not the silent majority of players who never got past chemical science.

And that would actually fit to the 681k users of Alien Biomes, because it sounds reasonable to me that about 50 percent of players who use mods actually used Alien Biomes at some point, because it just works as a graphical enhancement and looks cool.

So close to 700k ABiomes users, double that to about 1.4 million mod users overall, and we end up with 20-30 percent of 5 million players.

All that said: I have zero confidence that I'm right about this, because there's just no reliable data available, and I pulled all these numbers out of thin air.

But I also don't see why the ChatGPT guesstimate should be more believable than my idea, especially since it can't give a reasoning for these numbers, and I bet if you would disagree with it, it would simply correct its estimation to whatever you suggest, because the truth is: the LLM has no clue either.

So, yeah, I just hope that maybe a Wube dev is also curious about this and shares some actual data.

[shuzen]

I just searched the FFFs for the keyword 'mods', and found a few numbers in FFF 372 and 391 -> https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372 and https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-391

In 2022, there were:
638,886 players who downloaded 41,244,805* mods.

and

In 2023 we had:
676 651 engineers downloading 44 954 072 mods.

The 2022 update also mentions the sales number of 3.5 million players. 640k of 3.5 million is a bit less than 20%.

Of course the 3.5 million were accumulated over a longer time period than just 2022, but given that the mod users are mostly addicts that also have been playing for years, I think my guess was actually not that bad.