The Digital Dozen: 25 June 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 16 June 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	40.9	18,890	+2.9
2	2	Guild Wars 2	15.7	7,237	-3.7
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	12.1	5,581	+23.9
4	4	EVE Online	5.5	2,535	-0.3
5	5	Neverwinter	5.2	2,381	-0.5
6	6	RIFT	4.7	2,163	-7.1
7	7	Aion	3.6	1,655	-10.5
8	8	Tera	3.3	1,522	+2.2
9	9	Planetside 2	2.7	1,250	-7.1
10	10	Lord of the Rings Online	2.4	1,108	+1.7
11	11	Star Trek Online	2.0	940	-3.4
12	12	APB: Reloaded	2.0	928	-1.5

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 46,190

Sunday proved an unusually stable week where playtime for the most popular MMORPGs by the Xfire community.  In a week that saw only a 1.9% increase in time from the week before, no game changed position on the list from the Sunday before.

Summer Is Not A Tech Issue - Last week I wrote that I believed that some technical difficulties due to a very large playtime drop.  This week's rise of only 1.9% shows that perhaps the Xfire community actually goes outside when the weather is nice.

What SOE Can Do We Can Do Better - SOE is famous for holding double XP weekends over holiday weekends.  EA/Bioware is taking the concept one step further and holding three consecutive double XP weekends.  The first one, held last weekend, saw an increase of 23.9% in playtime by the Xfire community.  In the past when EA/Bioware held a giveaway event it was at the end of the quarter and needed to shore up sagging subscription numbers.  But that's not happening now, because the events are happening at the end of June... which happens to be the end of the financial quarter.  Yikes!

Calm Before The Storm - Two weeks ago, RIFT went free-to-play.  Last week Neverwinter officially launched.  Next week is Aion's turn as the Aion: Dark Betrayal launches tomorrow.  The game has slowly slipped down the list from a solid 4th to this week's 7th.  I expect that trend to turn around next Sunday.