The Digital Dozen: 10 September 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 8 September 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	33.0	13,831	+0.5
2	3	Final Fantasy XIV	19.4	8,116	+12.7
3	2	Guild Wars 2	17.5	7,335	-2.2
4	4	Star Wars: The Old Republic	7.7	3,229	+5.4
5	5	Aion	5.3	2,203	-17.7
6	6	EVE Online	4.4	1,844	+15.3
7	7	Tera	2.9	1,227	-1.0
8	--	Runescape	2.2	909	+32.5
9	8	Planetside 2	2.1	889	-1.6
10	--	Need For Speed World	1.9	817	+42.1
11	10	Lord of the Rings Online	1.9	804	-2.1
12	9	Neverwinter	1.7	725	-12.6

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 41,929

With the summer vacation season basically over the Xfire community turned its attention to gaming.  Although the amount of time spent playing the most popular MMORPGs rose for a second consecutive week Sunday, the overall increase was 1.9%.  The games experiencing the largest percentage increases in playtime were Need For Speed World (+42.1%), Runescape (+32.5%), and EVE Online (+15.3%).  Almost off-setting the gains were declines by Aion (-17.7%), Metin 2 (-15.5%), and Neverwinter (-12.6%).

They Really Love It - On Wednesday Square Equix performed a massive 10-hour maintenance on the Final Fantasy XIV servers and added a few more shards.  The result?  From what I've read players have an easier time getting into the game.  But what about the Xfire community?  Apparently they love the game, with the average playtime going up from 7.7 hours last week to 8 hours on Sunday.  That level of interest is unsustainable (I think) so I'm interested to see what the numbers look like on 6 October when the free month expires for those who purchased the game at or before launch.

Sinking Into The RIFT - For the first time in 16 weeks Trion's RIFT failed to make The Digital Dozen.  RIFT had rebounded in popularity, peaking at #5 on 16 June the first Sunday after the game went free-to-play.  With the launch of FFXIV and the upcoming launch of EverQuest Next Landmark before the end of the year, Trion's flagship game will have a hard time getting back onto the list for the remainder of the year.

Runescape Reborn - The third version of the Runescape engine is enjoying a lot of success.  Jagex reports that players are logging over 600,000 hours of play every day.  That interest has spread to the Xfire community, with Runescape making its fourth appearance on the list in the last six weeks.