I hope it's not true, but it wouldn't surprise me. It's a dick move to try to hide their failures, but they're also very keen to use those numbers when their game becomes a success.
With that said, it's also worth noting that player count numbers have also become a sort of weapon used by some hate groups, and also the source of mislead comments, like the analyst that said Palword was a failure because the player count had fallen two or three months after launch, without realizing that it's a single player game and in Early Access.
Please excuse my bad English.
Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070
Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.