Probably Stolen peaks at 186,095 players as recent Steam reviews turn sour

Probably Stolen - Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim reached a peak of 186,095 concurrent players on November 8, which put it at No. 11 in Steam's most played chart, up from 24th a week earlier. The reviews are moving the other way: of 9,097 Steam reviews posted in a recent 48-hour span, only 33 percent are positive.

Reviews are arriving at about 4,549 a day, against 1,328 a day before. The game now stands at 71 percent positive across 22,708 reviews, rated Mostly Positive. A week ago Notebookcheck reported that 96% of more than 7,000 reviews were positive. On November 9 at 17:41 UTC, 86,489 people were playing, with a peak of 167,948 that day.

What the developer has shipped

On November 6, Questing Goose Studio released Cumulative Update 1.0.0.12. Players can now shoot most storyline characters, except essential service providers, to end their storyline immediately; Security treats most of these shootings as manslaughter. Lou's storyline gets more choices and a Republic operative who lets players work against her, also on existing saves. An arrested Eleanor can now be bailed out, a new option removes the pop culture inspired customers, and Power Line Hijack II and III make Current Converters cheaper to run.

The 100-Rev13 Hotfix followed on November 8. It restored the previous Chinese translations of names, items, dialogue and UI text and fixed a bug with Lou's locker that got the player bombed, with the fix applying to existing saves. It also announces that a major modding security update will be fully merged on December 10; modders are asked to update before then. An earlier security update on October 31 already warned that some mods may break.

Also on November 6, the studio celebrated that "1 MILLION Shopkeepers have opened the shop" and published a roadmap for the next six months. November is reserved for bug fixes and quality-of-life work, further updates are planned for January and April, and every update on the roadmap will be free.

From hit launch to mixed mood

The launch itself was strong. The developer's day-one post reported 200,000 copies sold in the first few hours and a peak of 86,000+ players within 90 minutes. According to Notebookcheck, the studio announced 500,000 copies sold on October 30, and Notebookcheck, citing SteamDB, put the November 1 peak at more than 152,000. GameStar's headline notes that nobody wanted the earlier Steam demo, and PCGamesN credits the turnaround to "a complete rebrand"; tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik tells PCGamesN that "we worked with the dev" on it.

The criticism is about depth and polish. Notebookcheck reports that some players find the gameplay repetitive over time and criticise the interface and minor technical issues. In a negative Steam review, one player writes that it "feels like it's early access" and seems "very shallow and not fleshed out". Another negative review mentions "a controversy with an item's description" among Chinese players; the official hotfix notes only say the previous Chinese translations were restored.

In play, it is a cyberpunk shopkeeping sim on a dystopian space station: you craft, trade and smuggle goods, juggle faction loyalties and try to buy out your shop before rising rent catches up. Fans of Shipping Store Simulator 2037 will recognise the shopkeeping and management loop, Ostranauts shares its trading and cyberpunk setting, and Pawn Planet: First Sales its trading-and-management focus.

The game currently costs $17.99 on Steam, 10 percent off the regular $19.99. November is set aside for fixes, with the next roadmap updates due in January and April, and players who rely on mods should check that their mods are updated before December 10.