I’m a little slow on the draw here, and I’ve known this since the day of release, but why do The MCC and Halo 5 beta not have population counters? I can understand why not the Beta, because there are only 3 playlists, but why not a full game like MCC? The point of a population counter is to help direct which games and their respective playlists have the most (Or if any) players at all. The problem I have with The MCC is that there are many playlists at the moment, and I can’t tell if the game is taking forever to find people, or if the playlist itself has like 10 people on it. It was nice to have so that I knew which playlists had the highest chance of me joining a match, and which ones had the lowest. Halo 5’s beta shockingly and un-shockingly does not have a population counter as well. There really isn’t a reason to not put population counters in a game other than laziness, or just completely forgetting.
HOWEVER
I think I know why they haven’t included them since Halo 4, and their speculated intent seems quite shady.
SPECULATION COMMENCES
I feel like the reason why they haven’t included them is because they have noticed people take into account the population and how they may drop or sustain depending on whether a game is good or not. Halo 3 kept the #1 title in highest online population on Xbox Live for 3 years when it was released. Halo 4, made by 343i, lasted a few weeks and dropped significantly due to the fan-base’s negative reaction to it. So why did they not include one for The MCC?
Simple, they don’t want people estimating and measuring how significant population drops could be in the future. I mean, think about it, I’ve noticed that MANY people in the forums compare Bungie’s Halo titles versus 343i’s titles using their respective population counters.
Example: “Halo 3 had the best multiplayer hands down! It lasted for 3 YEARS as the most highly populated online game on Xbox Live.”
Example 2: “Halo 4 had the worst multiplayer in ANY Halo! I couldn’t even last a month without a significant population drop!”
The above examples do not necessarily reflect my opinion and I do not intend to start a flame-war over them.
This is merely speculation, but I believe this seedy assumption may be the reason why they haven’t included a population counter for The MCC collection. Anyone with answers are welcome to join this thread, especially one’s with confirmed evidence.