| Rank | Prev Week | Game | Score | Hours Played |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | World of Warcraft | 56.3 | 51,754 |
| 2 | 2 | Star Wars: The Old Republic | 9.3 | 8,536 |
| 3 | 3 | Aion | 6.5 | 6,013 |
| 4 | 4 | Eve Online | 4.9 | 4,474 |
| 5 | 6 | Lord of the Rings Online | 4.0 | 3,659 |
| 6 | 5 | Tera | 3.8 | 3,527 |
| 7 | 7 | Metin 2 | 3.4 | 3,080 |
| 8 | 8 | APB: Reloaded | 3.2 | 2,903 |
| 9 | T10 | The Secret World (Beta) | 2.6 | 2,399 |
| 10 | 9 | Need For Speed World | 2.5 | 2,312 |
| 11 | NR | D.C. Universe Online | 1.8 | 1,691 |
| 12 | T10 | Maple Story | 1.7 | 1,572 |
For the second consecutive week the hours the Xfire community spent playing MMORPGs increased. The 2.9% increase was led by World of Warcraft's solid 5.8% gain along with the interest in The Secret World's last open beta weekend. The week's big loser was Tera which saw a 15.5% drop in the amount of time spent playing the game.
The Diablo Effect Is Over? In the overall Xfire game charts Diablo 3 is now ranked #3 with the number of hours played Sunday down almost 60% from the first Sunday after the game's launch. World of Warcraft inched it's way back up to the #4 spot overall Sunday and has a good chance of staying there for the foreseeable future. Is it still having an effect on the MMORPG genre? According to the Xfire charts, the answer is arguably yes.
The game most affected by Diablo 3 because of a promotion, World of Warcraft, is still down 15.5% in time played than before the launch of Diablo 3. Overall, the time the Xfire community spends playing MMORPG's is down 15.8%. While one could argue that other factors, such as summer and the weakness of Star Wars: The Old Republic have contributed to the overall weakness in MMORPG numbers, the fact that the overall numbers so closely match with WoW's decline does lead some credence to believing the Diablo Effect is still having an influence.
Heroes Wanted: D.C. Universe Online made its first appearance in The Digital Dozen this week, coming in at #11. Games like DCUO show the weakness of using Xfire to give a definitive listing of the popularity of MMORPGs, as the SOE offering is available in both PC and console versions. Xfire only counts PC time played. DCUO is undoubtedly more popular than some of the games that rank ahead of it, but until game companies come around to CCP's level of openness about concurrency numbers I'll just have to rely on Xfire to give an approximation.
