They let it die.

With exception of few skilled barely anyone back from diplo still plays it. 

All my "Sins" time is now going to towards my mod instead of ICO....I once tried to take a break and play on ICO, but I was the only person in the lobby for a solid 5 minutes or so, so I left...a sad thing indeed...

Who cares..let it die but the games you people play are not balanced with titan feeding. Anyways it takes a big incident to spark a big change so i want this game to suffer to grow up, update the engine, update the UI menu to a more modern theme or a theme based on the race of your user profile, more tutorials and have them add those scenarios and story based sandbox themes. Everything is going according to plan in my book so rebellion should fail in multiplayer... 

10-20% of the total number of players currently online is different from 10-20% of all people who own the game...and there are tons of people who played the game but don't do so anymore...

I'm not saying 98% never played MP because I don't have access to that information...but I wouldn't be surprised if the number is in the mid or high 90s...

Regardless of preference (SP vs. MP), there are tons of people on my steam friends list that I haven't seen even touch Sins (let alone MP) for months, and other MP guys have reported similar observations with their Steam friends...it is indeed a quickly dying game...

The balance is really not that bad right now. There have been far worse balance issues in other RTS games I've played and they still managed to maintain a large MP playerbase for years. I think MP numbers are dropping off for a number of reasons:

1. A lot of dedicated MP players have been playing for years. People get tired of the game and move on. Not much changed with ICO/MP to reinvigorate/encourage it.

2. MP is really not friendly to new players. There is no ranking/automatch system to get people into games quickly or to find games at their skill level.

3. The less people that play, the harder it is to find games, the more it feels like work to get a game going, people play less, repeat.

4. Lots of new games have come out that grab people's attention away for a while.

Other RTS games with worse balance issues succeeded because there was more dev-community communication-interaction to quickly fix issues, there was an automatch system to easily find games and ease new players in, there were tournaments, contests, livecasts, etc. to generate interest. Basically Rebellion never hit a critical mass of MP players and ICO didn't have the features to attract and retain any good numbers. Balance probably drove away some at earlier points in the game but I think it runs a lot deeper than that. It's a great game but if MP is what keeps you interested, it really isn't the game for you at this point. Once Sins of a Dark Age and CoH2 come out, which will both have a robust MP scene, I'll be gone to those and only re-visiting for nostalgia most likely.

I have to say in particular #2 is a great point.  Old-players are gradually leaving due to either the game getting old for them or frustration with specific enduring balance issues- which happens in almost any competitive RTS that's been around for years.  The problem is no new blood is really coming in because the current state of multiplayer is just too damned intimidating.

I think it would be a massive improvement if a ladder/ELO/matchmaker system were added to multiplayer so that newerpeople would actually have a bit more of a chance of being matched against people close to their skill level.  Of course at first wit hthe current number of people online it would largely be a placebo effect- but in time it may actually accomplish that goal if more people cam online.

I didn't play in Diplo so maybe I just have more patience for the balance issues where older players don't. Maybe balance is the main reason for the old timers to leave, I don't know, but I don't think it is the main reason for the majority. It is not perfect but I don't think it is bad enough alone to account for the huge drop. A lot of new players came in with Rebellion so there must be more to the drop of numbers than just balance. My point was more that, if the game had an online population of 2000+ players, an automatch/ranking system, some improved ICO features, continued dev MP support, and increased forum buzz, tournaments, livecasts, etc. then 3 or 4 balance issues that could be fixed with a single patch would not be enough to keep most people away - especially when a lot of things did get fixes already.

Btw, what substitute game did you find?

Re: Online numbers and balance

To put things further in perspective, Relic's Company of Heros RTS came out in 2006. It had an expansion in 2007. They're on patch 2.6 currently. It's a 6 year old game that still averages 6000 players online at a time. It's gone through tons of ups and downs with balance, especially with the release of its expansion. It still held on to good numbers because most of the other MP factors I mentioned were in place to keep it moving and alive. It received a number of spikes in sales when it moved to Steam and when Steam sales went on. This is an example of how a MP scene for a game helps keep it alive and keep sales healthy for years after release.

It's very frustrating to be continually beat down by the bullshit that is wail, AR titan, VL titan, VR... anything.

Because games can drag on for a while it really is soul destroying to see your efforts go to waste. Enough to make you leave the game for a while at least.

I second hearing about what this mysterious substitute is!

Naw, if u follow the news, Rebellion sold EXCEPTIONALLY WELL. But the thing is multiplayer matches take a LONG time. So most people might have simply chosen to go purely offline, heck everyone I know in real life that plays this never goes online (including myself) simply because it takes too long.

Add in an indefinite amount of time to start a game though and I can understand why some people think it takes too long...it is not at all unheard of to have to wait 20 minutes to get 10 people, then wait another 10 minutes just to get the damn game going....

This is only partially true. Rebellion is indeed somewhat "shallower" than games like Total War or most of the turn-based Master of Orion clones. At the same time, its not really a fully-fledged multiplayer game. For that, the average length of one multiplayer session would have to be between 10 and 20 minutes, which is clearly not the case. Basically, SoaSE is a hybrid and this has both its upsides (being special, giving RTS players the feel of grand scale, which obviously games like StarCraft lack) and its downsides (not deep enough for singleplayer, not fast enough for multiplayer). You just have to accept and appreciate it for what it is. 

How did you come up with this number? I don't know of any RTS games that last 10-20 minutes unless it's a noobstomp game. Many average in the 30-60 realm. Sins is a little longer but nothing unreasonable if you enjoy the game. Sel's point about waiting time is a big deterrent though I agree, especially combined with troll antics.