+ open.mp forum (https://forum.open.mp)
-- Forum: General (https://forum.open.mp/forumdisplay.php?fid=19)
--- Forum: Chat (https://forum.open.mp/forumdisplay.php?fid=20)
--- Thread: From Uncertainty to Growth: The Story of SA-MP, open.mp and What the Data Reveals (/showthread.php?tid=4273)
From Uncertainty to Growth: The Story of SA-MP, open.mp and What the Data Reveals - Xyranaut - 2026-05-31
From Uncertainty to Growth: The Story of SA-MP, open.mp and What the Data Reveals
A look at the evolution of the multiplayer ecosystem through live analytics, historical trends and community-driven innovation
View the Dashboard
A look at the evolution of the multiplayer ecosystem through live analytics, historical trends and community-driven innovation
View the Dashboard
For nearly two decades, SA-MP was the foundation of GTA: San Andreas multiplayer.
Thousands of servers were created, millions of players connected and entire communities were built around a platform that became one of the most successful multiplayer modifications in gaming history.
Then came uncertainty.
As development slowed and Kalcor stepped away from active involvement, many questioned what the future would look like.
Would the ecosystem slowly decline?
Would communities migrate to other games and platforms?
Would SA-MP eventually become another piece of gaming history, remembered fondly but no longer evolving?
Several years later, we can begin answering those questions with something more than speculation.
Data.
To better understand the state of the ecosystem, I built a public analytics dashboard that tracks server counts, player populations, adoption trends, geographic distribution and historical statistics across both SA-MP and open.mp.
Dashboard Link
The COVID Boom
One of the most striking patterns visible in the historical data is the COVID-era surge.
Like many online games, SA-MP experienced a dramatic increase in activity during lockdown periods. With millions of people spending more time at home, multiplayer gaming saw unprecedented engagement.
Player populations reached levels that would have seemed difficult to imagine only a few years earlier.
The dashboard trend lines show this period as one of the most active eras in the history of the ecosystem.
The Post-COVID Correction
As restrictions ended and normal life resumed, player numbers naturally declined.
This was not unique to SA-MP. The same pattern could be seen across countless online games.
What matters is what happened next.
The ecosystem remained active.
Servers continued operating.
Communities stayed together.
Rather than disappearing after the temporary boom, the multiplayer scene proved remarkably resilient.
The Arrival of open.mp
Perhaps the most interesting chapter began after open.mp emerged.
At a time when many expected stagnation, the ecosystem instead began evolving.
Today, dashboard data shows:
- More than 1,000 tracked servers
- More than 25,000 concurrent players
- Over 500 servers running open.mp
- Approximately 50% server share for open.mp
That figure alone tells an interesting story.
The transition did not happen overnight.
There was no forced migration.
Server owners moved gradually, evaluating stability, compatibility and long-term viability before making the switch.
Years after SA-MP's development slowdown, open.mp now represents roughly half of all tracked servers.
A Milestone More Significant Than It Appears
The 50% figure becomes even more impressive when considering that some of the ecosystem's largest and longest-running communities still primarily operate on traditional SA-MP infrastructure.
Many established servers have years of custom systems, tooling and gamemode development behind them. Migrating infrastructure is not always a simple decision.
This means open.mp's growth has not been driven solely by a handful of major communities.
Instead, adoption appears to be occurring across hundreds of independent servers.
That suggests genuine ecosystem-wide confidence rather than a short-term trend.
The Story of GTA: Underground and UG-MP
To understand why open.mp's growth is remarkable, it helps to remember another ambitious project from the GTA modding community.
Many players will remember GTA: Underground.
The project sought to combine multiple Rockstar worlds into a single playable experience, bringing together content from GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas into one massive game world.
Less well known was its multiplayer component: UG-MP.
UG-MP was developed as a fork of SA-MP and aimed to bring multiplayer functionality to this expanded world while maintaining compatibility with existing SA-MP scripting and gamemodes.
It represented an alternative vision of what multiplayer San Andreas could become.
A larger world.
Expanded capabilities.
A new technical direction.
However, during a period of increasing legal pressure and DMCA activity affecting major GTA modding projects, GTA: Underground became one of the most visible casualties of the uncertainty surrounding the modding scene.
Development ended and official downloads were removed.
One of the most ambitious community projects ever built for San Andreas disappeared before its long-term vision could be fully realised.
Two Very Different Outcomes
Looking back, GTA: Underground and open.mp tell two very different stories.
One ambitious community project became a casualty of a turbulent period for GTA modding.
The other survived uncertainty and continued growing.
When Kalcor stepped away, there was no guarantee which path the multiplayer ecosystem would follow.
Many feared that SA-MP itself could gradually fade away.
Instead, the community organised.
Developers contributed.
Infrastructure improved.
Server owners adopted new technology.
And open.mp steadily expanded.
What could have become a story about decline instead became a story about continuation.
Community-Driven Development
One of the biggest differences between the current era and the past is how development now occurs.
Instead of relying on a single individual, open.mp benefits from contributions across the community.
This has enabled:
- Regular updates
- Modern tooling
- Infrastructure improvements
- New APIs and services
- Long-term maintainability
The platform continues evolving because the ecosystem itself has become invested in its future.
The AI Era and the Future of Server Development
Another major change is happening outside the platform itself.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how servers are developed and maintained.
Historically, creating and managing a server required extensive scripting knowledge. Debugging legacy Pawn code, understanding large gamemodes, porting systems and implementing new features often required significant time and experience.
Today, AI-assisted tools can help developers:
- Debug scripts faster
- Explain legacy codebases
- Generate boilerplate systems
- Port existing code
- Write documentation
- Prototype new gameplay features
- Reduce development time for routine tasks
For experienced developers, AI can act as a productivity multiplier.
For newcomers, it lowers the barrier to entry and makes complex systems easier to understand.
Of course, AI comes at a cost.
The most capable models often require paid access, generated code still requires review and human oversight remains essential.
AI will not replace good developers.
However, it does make experimentation, maintenance and feature development significantly faster than it was during much of the SA-MP era.
Combined with an actively maintained platform like open.mp, this may create opportunities for innovation that simply were not available a decade ago.
Explore the Dashboard
https://mac-andreas.github.io/#dashboard
Features include:
- Live server statistics
- Historical player trends
- open.mp adoption tracking
- Geographic distribution maps
- Language analytics
- Version statistics
- Platform benchmarking
The dashboard started as a way to visualise server statistics.
What emerged was something more interesting.
A timeline of the ecosystem itself.
From the COVID boom, through the uncertainty following SA-MP's development slowdown, to the rise of open.mp and the emergence of new development tools, the data tells the story of a community that proved far more resilient and adaptable than many expected.