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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Digital Dozen: 27 August 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 25 August 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank Prev Week Game ScoreHours Played +/- %
11World of Warcraft 40.7 14,249-3.8
22Guild Wars 221.67,548+12.6
33Star Wars: The Old Republic9.63,352-13.1
44EVE Online5.41,890-2.1
55Aion4.81,666-5.1
66Tera4.11,430+16.6
710Neverwinter2.8970+15.3
89Lord of the Rings Online2.7943+11.1
97Planetside 22.7933+1.3
1011Runescape2.0711-7.3
118RIFT2.0709-22.3
12--APB: Reloaded1.8623-1.3
 
Total Digital Dozen Hours: 35,024
 
Sunday saw little change in the amount of time spent playing the Xfire community's favorite MMORPGs compared to the week before.  An overall 0.5% decline in playtime was marked by deep declines playing Star Trek Online (-22.9%) and RIFT (-22.3%).  Those declines were nearly offset by major gains spent playing Tera (+16.6%), Neverwinter (+15.3%) and Guild Wars 2 (+12.6%).

Easy Access - Tera's popularity Sunday was possibly caused by the easing of the requirements to enter the Vault of Allies.  From 20 August until downtime on 29 August En Mass will lift the requirement that only full alliance members are allowed in the Vault.  I'm not sure what's in the content, but a lot of players want in.

Unexpected - Has Trion's recent troubles led the Xfire community to abandon RIFT?  Despite the beginning of the Mayhem in Mathosia event on 21 August the time the Xfire community spent playing RIFT dropped a whopping 22.3%.  I haven't heard of any problems with the patch, just with Trion itself.  Is this just part of the trend?

New Content - Neverwinter received a 15.3% increase in playtime on the strength of the Fury of the Feywild content patch.  This first module of the game features new Campaign and Call to Arms systems.  Oh, and as a free-to-play game, the inevitable new Feywild Lockbox as well.

3 comments:

  1. Based on the amount of time you've spent tracking these numbers, how large a week-to-week fluctuation would it take for you to be convinced that it means something?

    i.e. that it is not just random variance?

    Changes of +16.6% here and -22.3% there certainly look significant. But are they? I don't know.

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    Replies
    1. @Carson 63000

      I think we will have a clue when GW2 get launched for the chinese market. The numbers added to GW2 will not be random variance.

      Too take note that GW2 had a free weekend 25 august 2013. So, that +12.6% were not random, but an influx of free weekend players.

      Delete
  2. The fast boom on online gaming is why a service from an Australian broadband service provider is in demand here in Australia nowadays. =) Kidding aside, I hope they will release a new version of red alert. =)

    ReplyDelete