Quote Originally Posted by TheOperator3712 View Post
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That is not how you measure growth. Growth is a trend metric, and as such you do not measure it by taking two points in exclusion to the rest of the set. Doing so has a high likelihood of giving you an erroneous result. The only thing you can determine from noting that a more recent point is higher than a previous point is that a growth period had happened between the two points. You can not conclude that it is still happening or that it had not reversed at some point between the two points.

To accurately determine the trend of a data set, you must look at the entire set.

As a practical example, consider this chart of the stock market which shows the 1929 crash(Cropped for readability). If I were to look only at the points I have marked in red, using your proposed methodology, I might conclude that the market was in a period of growth at the latter point. When in actuality, the second marked point is towards the beginning of a massive decline.
And still excludes the growths and declines the market has experienced since. It also doesn't mention factors that influenced the sharper value changes.

In reality, it's all a guessing game. We cannot know which direction things are going. We can only view things clearly in hindsight. High populations now may be low in 6 months then higher in 12 months or vice versa. It depends on player engagement and other game releases.

People need to stop worrying about how many other players are active. The important question is "Are you having a good time?" If you are, great. If you aren't, why are you paying money to have a bad time?