Harry Potter Quidditch Champions lost 48% of its PS5 players in a week

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions' PS5 player count was off to a strong start after a day-one PS Plus launch, but 48% of its player base have moved already.

Lee Brady

Published 16 Sep 2024

While PS5 and PS4 players initially rushed to check out those Harry Potter Quidditch Champions trophies after the game's day-one launch as a PlayStation Plus September 2024 monthly game, it seems things have rapidly settled down. In its second week, Harry Potter Quidditch Champions' PS5 player count dropped by nearly half, suggesting the game's novelty might already be wearing thin.

Harry Potter's latest game drops half its PS5 player base in a single week

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions launched as a day-one PS Plus game on Tuesday, September 3, 2024
At launch, this Harry Potter game quickly became the second-biggest PS Plus game of 2024 so far
However, in its second week, Harry Potter Quidditch Champions dropped 48% of its PS5 and PS4 player count

Using a gameplay data sample from over 3.1 million active PSN accounts (courtesy of our partnership with GameInsights, which draws most of its PSN data from sources beyond TrueTrophies), we've been able to keep tabs on the weekly PS5 and PS4 player count for every game that comes to PS Plus Essential.

That includes Harry Potter Quidditch Champions, which saw a tremendous number of PS5 and PS4 players checking out the game after launching as a day-one PS Plus game for September 2024. The online multiplayer game found immediate success thanks to Sony's subscription service, landing it a debut at #10 on our PlayStation Chart.

However, despite being the second-biggest PS Plus game of 2024 and almost single-handedly boosting the PS Plus September 2024 player count, it seems Harry Potter Quidditch Champions' success might be rather short-lived.

Top PS Plus Essential launches of 2024 so far

#1 — EA Sports FC 24 (May 2024)
#2 — Harry Potter Quidditch Champions (September 24)
#3 — Sifu (March 2024)
#4 — Evil West (January 2024)
#5 — Foamstars (February 2024)
#6 — LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga (August 2024)
#7 — Among Us (July 2024)
#8 — Tunic (May 2024)
#9 — Ender Lilies Quietus of the Knights (August 2024)
#10 — F1 23 (March 2024)

According to our data (from week ending Sunday, September 15, 2024), the game dropped 48.3% of its active PS5 and PS4 player count in its second week of sale. In that same week, Quidditch Champions fell 11 places on the PlayStation Chart to the #21 spot, finding itself overtaken by older or less trendy games like Astro's Playroom and Valorant.

Lee —

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions isn't the new Foamstars (yet)

Had Harry Potter Quidditch Champions been a short, single-player focused PS Plus debut, we wouldn't be too concerned about a major drop in player count this early on. However, as an online-focused multiplayer game with live-service elements, the game's success (and the health of its servers) depends on a strong core of recurring online players.

To see the game drop nearly half of its PS5 and PS4 player base in a single week raises considerable concerns, as it closely mirrors Foamstars's PS5 and PS4 player count drop — another online-focused game that joined PS Plus as a day-one game in 2024. Foamstars had seen a similarly high level of intrigue in its first week before losing 54% of its player base in week two.

By August 2024, Foamstars had completely fallen out of the top 500 most-played PS5 and PS4 games. The live-service game has since announced it would be pivoting to a free-to-play model as a last-ditch effort to stir up some interest from players, and what the future holds for the title remain quite unclear.

That said, despite being in a similar position as a live-service PS Plus game with a plummeting player count, Harry Potter Quidditch Champions holds two advantages over Foamstars.

The first is the game's initial player base — Quidditch Champions saw 50.2% more PS5 and PS4 players during its PS Plus launch than Foamstars did. That stronger start should at least help keep Quidditch Champions' servers active for a while yet, and it suggests that there's greater interest in the game in general.

The second is its connection to the Harry Potter franchise. Quidditch Champions needs a loyal fanbase of players if it means to survive, so its a good thing Harry Potter fans have championed much worse-playing games than this (you can read about most of them in our best Harry Potter games ranking). So, there's a good chance that some devotees will help prop up the game's online scene.

Neither advantage guarantees that Harry Potter Quidditch Champions will stick around forever, but it at least gives the live-service game a better fighting chance of enduring such a massive player count drop so early on.

Here at TrueTrophies, we've all rather enjoyed the game, and if you've seen our Harry Potter Quidditch Champions platinum trophy tips, you'll know we also enjoyed hunting down the game's trophies on PS5! That said, we have to admit that most of us here are already past the novelty of Quidditch Champions. Are you still playing this day-one PS Plus game? Let us know down in the comments below!

Chart compiled using gameplay data from over 3.1 million active PlayStation accounts (not just TrueTrophies accounts). Chart information is copyright GameInsights. Regarding this data:

When an account opens a game, this is registered as a game being played. Accounts can only register a game once per week.
Our data is good for suggesting general trends — we represent this using percentages, not numbers.

More Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions stories:

Written by Lee Brady

Staff Writer Lee keeps one eye on the future (Astro Bot), one eye on the past (PS1, PS2, and PS3 games), and his secret third eye on junk he really likes (Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic). A PlayStation fan for over 25 years, he loves replaying classic games via PS Plus.