The Digital Dozen: 12 November 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 10 November 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	44.2	14,300	+2.1
2	2	Guild Wars 2	13.8	4,452	-14.0
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	9.0	2,919	-13.1
4	4	Final Fantasy XIV	8.6	2,797	-7.3
5	5	EVE Online	4.7	1,516	-8.3
6	6	Aion	4.4	1,420	+5.4
7	7	Tera	3.8	1,220	-5.4
8	8	RIFT	3.1	1,008	-4.6
9	9	Lord of the Rings Online	3.1	998	+0.8
10	10	Planetside 2	2.0	634	+3.6
11	12	APB: Reloaded	1.8	569	+5.2
12	--	Infestation: Survivor Stories	1.7	541	+13.9

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 33,643

For the seventh time in eight weeks, the Xfire community spent less time playing the most popular MMORPGs than the week before.   Sunday's 3.8% decline was slightly lower than the average weekly decline of 3.3% seen during the past two months.  Infestation: Survivor Stories replaced CABAL Online on the list, preventing CABAL Online from appearing two consecutive weeks on The Digital Dozen for the first time.

Convention Bounce:  Okay, 2.1% isn't a big bounce, but World of Warcraft did see the number of hours played go up the day after the end of Blizzcon.  Don't expect to witness a rise similar to EVE Online's following CCP's Fanfest in April.  CCP not only had a 10th year anniversary celebration in May but an expansion in June to keep the hype train running.  The release date for the next WoW expansion, Warlords of Draenor, was not revealed and is still probably months away.

Has The Living Story Magic Ended?  Guild Wars 2 initially had much success keeping the Xfire community engaged with new content coming out every two weeks.  But has the novelty worn off?  Last week, the number of hours actually declined.  But was that just a bad content patch?  We'll find out next Sunday as ArenaNet is launching The Nightmares Within today.