The Digital Dozen: 19 March 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 17 March 2013.  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	40.2	25,656	-0.5
2	2	Guild Wars 2	16.5	10,543	-1.2
3	4	Star Wars: The Old Republic	11.7	7,484	+31.0
4	3	Tera	7.5	4,768	-2.7
5	5	Aion	5.2	3,339	+8.2
6	6	Eve Online	4.3	2,761	+9.7
7	7	Lord of the Rings Online	3.2	2,052	-7.4
8	9	PlanetSide 2	2.7	1,712	+1.5
9	10	Metin 2	2.4	1,559	+15.1
10	11	The War Z	2.2	1,380	+2.8
11	8	Runescape	2.1	1,353	-19.8
12	12	APB: Reloaded	2.0	1,291	+17.3

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 63,898

Interest in playing the top MMORPGs among the Xfire community increased last week, seeing the number of hours playing the most popular games by 3%.  The way was led by Star Wars: The Old Republic (+31%), APB: Reloaded (+17.3%) and Metin 2 (+15.1%).  The game taking the biggest fall was Runescape (-19.8%).

A Bright Spot - In the past Star Wars: The Old Republic has disappointed EA.  But if Xfire is an accurate guide, the game's 31% rise in time played is the bright spot of the week for EA.  So far this week EA has experienced the resignation of CEO John Riccitiello and the news that EA's app store Origins has a security hole that puts 40 million users at risk.  Add that with EA's recent woes with the new SimCity game and EA could use some good news.

Nostalgia Doesn't Last - A lot of gamers want to go back and play the games they grew up with.  The question is whether the games are really as good as players remember.  A recent example in the MMORPG space is Runescape, which released a 2007 rule set of the game.  The game picked up interest but for how long?