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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

The Digital Dozen: 4 December 2012

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 2 December 2012.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.


Rank Prev Week Game ScoreHours Played +/- %
11World of Warcraft 41.4 33,626+3.1
22Guild Wars 218.915,301-14.3
33Star Wars: The Old Republic11.89,570-9.1
44Planetside 27.56,089+8.6
55Aion4.03,2710.0
66Eve Online3.73,032-3.4
77Lord of the Rings Online3.02,437-6.7
88Metin 22.52,040-14.5
99The War Z (Alpha)2.41,981-1.2
1010APB: Reloaded1.91,564+5.7
11--Maple Story1.41,146+10.6
1211Need For Speed World1.41,104-13.6
 
Total MMORPG hours played Sunday: 103,465
 
The recent decline in the Xfire community's interest in MMORPGs slowed on Sunday with players only spending 2.9% less time playing games set in the genre than the week before.  The games with the largest gains in playtime percentage-wise were Maple Story (10.6%) and Planetside 2 (8.6%).  The games losing the most time investment were Metin 2 (-14.5%), Guild Wars 2 (-14.3%) and Need For Speed World (-13.6%).

Timing Is Everything? - Planetside 2 experienced an 8.6% increase from the first full weekend to the second.  Can the SOE game defy recent experience and actually build its player base over the first month?  Possibly since it is the only MMOFPS on the PC and the only sci-fi competition in December is today's launch of Eve Online's Retribution expansion.

Into The Storm - Maple Story has gone from a game with a solid presence in The Digital Dozen to only making appearances when Nexon runs in-game events.  One of those event occurred this weekend as players raced to complete the requirements to receive two Premium Surprise Style Boxes.
Retribution Renaissance? - As mentioned above today is the launch of Eve Online's Retribution expansion.  With a vast revamp of tech 1 frigates and cruisers and upgrades of game systems, CCP is not offering any Jesus features that could lure in new players.  Eve Online traditionally sees an increase of players in December.  Will Retribution help maintain the trend.