while i do agree with your reasoning i still think a 6x difference in concurrent players on steam says something about a game - especially on launch day/weekend. if a game is a big success it’s a big success everywhere but then since avowed’s budget was probably not as overblown as other current titles’ budgets it might not be all too bad.

not sure if the question is serious but anyway: stalker 2 was also on gamepass and had 120k concurrent users on steam while avowed had 20k.

if steam is any indication i would not call it a success: https://steamdb.info/app/2457220/charts/#max

i’m pretty sure as a chinese game developer it’s pretty easy to rent a few 10k people to install the game. still, so far i have heard and seen only good things about the game, so i guess it will be a huge success worldwide when it comes out.