The Digital Dozen: 31 July 2012

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 29 July 2012.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played
1	1	World of Warcraft	57.5	54,307
2	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	8.6	8,160
3	5	Aion	5.4	5,076
4	4	The Secret World	4.5	5,016
5	6	Eve Online	4.2	3,949
6	7	Metin 2	3.6	3,395
7	8	Lord of the Rings Online	3.3	3,106
8	9	APB: Reloaded	3.1	2,950
9	NR	Guild Wars	2.6	2,452
10	NR	Need For Speed World	2.5	2,390
11	12	Star Trek Online	2.4	2,252
12	11	Maple Story	2.2	2,102

  Total MMORPG hours played Sunday: 128,083  

As expected following the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, Sunday saw the amount of time spent playing MMORPGs by the Xfire community drop 12.3%.   The three games benefiting most from the returning traffic in percentage terms were Guild Wars (+219.7%), APB: Reloaded (+31.1%) and Need For Speed World (+28.6%).  The gains allowed Guild Wars and Need For Speed World to re-enter The Digital Dozen.  The big loser last week was The Secret World wich saw a decline of 15.1%.

Fighting the trend:  The Secret World saw a 15.1% decrease in playtime Sunday despite the fact that Guild Wars 2 is no longer running betas.  I attribute this to the fact that the free 30-days of playtime for purchasing the game expires for those who played at launch on Thursday.  This drop-off occurred for both Star Wars: The Old Republic and Tera.  Funcom is fighting the trend with the release of TSW's first content patch today followed by a first month celebration weekend from 3 August to 7 August.

A big fall:  Speaking of Tera, the game has fallen out of the Digital Dozen less than three months after launch.  Since its high point on 6 May, the game has seen a 78% decline in hours played by the Xfire community.