The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players
of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 1 December 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 | 46.1 | 14,916 | +4.6 |
| 2 | 2 | Guild Wars 2 | 12.6 | 4,088 | -1.8 |
| 3 | 3 | Star Wars: The Old Republic | 9.6 | 3,124 | -8.1 |
| 4 | 4 | Final Fantasy XIV | 5.7 | 1,853 | -0.9 |
| 5 | 5 | EVE Online | 4.7 | 1,538 | +3.9 |
| 6 | 7 | Aion | 4.6 | 1,444 | +25.5 |
| 7 | 8 | Tera | 3.7 | 1,192 | +17.8 |
| 8 | 11 | Neverwinter | 3.0 | 974 | +65.9 |
| 9 | 6 | Lord of the Rings Online | 2.9 | 938 | -21.6 |
| 10 | 9 | RIFT | 2.8 | 912 | -5.0 |
| 11 | 10 | Planetside 2 | 2.3 | 730 | +18.9 |
| 12 | -- | Maple Story | 2.1 | 681 | +40.7 |
Total Digital Dozen Hours: 32,390
Sunday saw an end to a six week streak of declining hours spent playing MMORPGs by the Xfire community. The 3.7% increase compared to the Sunday before was led by World of Warcraft which saw a 653 hour increase. The games showing the largest drop in play time were Star Wars: The Old Republic with 277 hours and Lord of the Rings Online with 258 hours. Need for Speed World dropped off the list and was replaced by Maple Story. This week is the first appearance for the Nexon game since 28 July.
Chuck Norris Was A Ranger, Right? The most impressive comeback this week belongs to Neverwinter. With a 65% gain over last week and the most time played since August, Neverwinter appears back after missing the list 4 out of the previous 6 weeks. What caused the change? The Shadowmantle module launched on 5 December, bringing with it the Hunter Ranger class. The new content seems to have captured players' attention.
Seeing Red - Another game making a comeback due to an expansion is Maple Story. The Red: First Impact expansion saw revamped classes and profession systems along with holiday events. However, the game also saw technical issues which resulted in Nexon giving players compensation. Of course, that could have inflated the numbers as one of the compensation events ran on Sunday. But even after that issue was resolved two additional issues arose, marring the launch further. I have to wonder if the momentum was destroyed and the players will drift away again.
But, But, Spaceships! - Star Wars: The Old Republic saw the number of hours the Xfire community spent playing drop by 8.1% Sunday. That despite the Galactic Starfighter patch launching last week. Of course, the launch wasn't for all players. Only subscribers had access to Galactic Starfighter on 3 December, with Preferred Players getting access on 14 January and free-to-play players seeing the content on 4 February.
What is Xfire?
ReplyDeleteI've been playing TOR a lot more than I used to, due entirely to GSF. They totally nailed the Star Wars feel with that.
Xfire is an instant messaging service for games that lets people talk while playing different games. The site also keeps track of what games people play and displays stats for the games.
DeleteI've heard mixed things about Galactic Starfighter, but I think the numbers would have gone up this week if everyone had access to it at the same time.