You can suppose various theoretical situations where PCU dropping doesn’t mean “fewer players”, but that’s never been the case with EVE. We also don’t need theoretical posings when we have a perfectly good map of player logins.
Here’s a comparison of summer of 2018 (so it’s post-Alpha, pre-PA, pre-Covid, and already has the ‘summer lows’ baked in) vs. current logins. 2018 top, 2022 bottom:
I couldn’t get the hours to line up exactly but it’s pretty close. You can see the overall daily pattern remains the same (and is the same as it was 10 years ago and 15 years ago), but with 5-6k fewer players in every time slot. And the 30k’s are just not there anymore.
Other numbers: in 2021 we had an event that gave a solid estimate of total active subs, around 130,000 - vs. over 500,000 less than a decade ago. We also had over 38k votes for CSM in 2021. This year we had under 31k, a 20% drop. Other indications show we’ve lost about 20% of players (and subs) as well, beyond the PCU.
You can also check the MER and see that activity is down significantly across the board in every area. Mining, production, destruction, trade, travel - everything down.
It’s common for old games to lose players, that’s not unusual. What is unusual, is the way EVE limps along for a while as players “give it another chance”, then CCP fails the player base (again!) and activity starts dropping hard. Usually at that point CCP tries some desperation move to get players back and that props things up for a while longer.
It remains to be seen whether the current promised “biggest update ever” will have what it takes to hold on to an ever-shrinking playerbase.
In the meantime, players should probably stop making excuses for CCP’s incompetence, and start demanding loud and clear that EVE needs serious attention before they blow their last chance.