It can be an indicator of post-launch performance. In this case, it performed well at launch but has now stablised like most games do. By my metrics, 30k a day is pretty good at a glance. You’d have to find more actual comparisons to make informed conclusions though, which you sort of find if you go through Forbes’ source which is a quote tweet of an article from GamingBolt ( just link the article lmao):

Cyberpunk 2077 may have seen a major new update and a paid expansion, Phantom Liberty, but that was in September. It’s sitting at 23rd in the most-played games chart on Steam, with a 24-hour peak of 36,246. Starfield is currently in 43rd place behind games like Elden Ring, Valheim, Stardew Valley and Terraria.

There are more paragraphs with the same vibe, with the obvious disclaimer that it’s on game pass too. But there’s a number of other things that would go into an actual performance analysis. e.g, are the “competing” games currently on sale? What other factors affect the current landscape of games played? What do each of these games’ numbers look like in the same time period following their launch?

That’s the kind of data the publishers have access to and do actual analysis on. I think this reporting is just chasing a trend for engagement. 22 - 30k is not bad for a singleplayer game without mod support (yet) which people will pick up, play, and put down. I don’t see anything to indicate it’s “in trouble” (we’d probably have heard by now of internal planning changes at Bethesda if that were the case).