| Rank | Prev Week | Game | Score | Hours Played | +/- % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -- | Guild Wars 2 | 50.0 | 79,622 | -- |
| 2 | 1 | World of Warcraft | 30.7 | 48,913 | -1.6 |
| 3 | 2 | Star Wars: The Old Republic | 3.9 | 6,245 | -16.3 |
| 4 | 3 | Aion | 3.1 | 4,973 | -3.9 |
| 5 | 4 | Eve Online | 2.2 | 3,512 | -9.6 |
| 6 | 9 | Metin 2 | 2.1 | 3,306 | +31.3 |
| 7 | 5 | Lord of the Rings Online | 1.7 | 2,754 | -10.0 |
| 8 | 8 | APB: Reloaded | 1.6 | 2,574 | -1.2 |
| 9 | 10 | Need For Speed World | 1.3 | 2,056 | +7.5 |
| 10 | 11 | Maple Story | 1.2 | 1,881 | -0.8 |
| 11 | 7 | The Secret World | 1.2 | 1,835 | -34.1 |
| 12 | 12 | Star Trek Online | 1.0 | 1,558 | -12.8 |
Sunday saw the most time spent playing MMORPGs by the Xfire community since mid-April as Guild Wars 2 stormed past World of Warcraft and seized the number one spot in The Digital Dozen. Overall players spent 62.9% more time playing MMORPGs than they did the previous Sunday. The biggest losers of players (besides the original Guild Wars) in percentage terms were The Secret World (-34.1%), Star Wars: The Old Republic (-16.3%) and Star Trek Online (-12.8%). Two games managed to buck the GW2 tidal wave: Metin 2 (+31.3%) recovering from a bad previous week and Need For Speed World (+7.5%).
Today is the Guild Wars 2 launch: Despite the gaudy numbers, the scary thing for other game developers and publishers is that this weekend was just the early launch for those who pre-ordered GW2. The official launch of the game is today.
Weathering the storm: Guild Wars 2 vaulted over World of Warcraft, leaving Blizzard looking up at another MMORPG for the first time in years. But don't blame Blizzard as they pulled out all the stops in order to retain their players including today's Mists of Pandaria pre-patch that will allow all players to play all races, even if they have not purchased the relevant expansion. The Blizzard push worked as WoW only saw its playtime decrease by 1.6%. But what about next weekend when everyone can play GW2? That is the real test, at least until MoP comes out on 25 September.
A change in format: This week I added a column to the table to show the percentage change in the number of hours played compared to the previous Sunday. With all the developer vs developer action occurring this summer, having the ability to see at a glance what the effects are is an overdue change.
"But don't blame Blizzard as they pulled out all the stops"
ReplyDeleteThey dropped a patch. Today. And while it has some interesting items, I don't think that rises to a "pulling out all the stops" level of effort. Or did I miss some other big Blizzard event this past weekend?
All the features that were previously part of the optional WoW Remote subscription service are now free. There was a sale in which you could buy all the expansions for 75% off, but that apparently ended last Tuesday. And I think the patch had a lot of stuff in it that probably would have waited to be included in the expansion in normal times, but I could be wrong. Maybe I've just watched too much Gamebreaker TV.
ReplyDelete