| Rank | Prev Week | Game | Score | Hours Played | +/- % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | World of Warcraft | 31.4 | 5,985 | -13.8 |
| 2 | 2 | Wildstar | 19.1 | 3,635 | -13.2 |
| 3 | 3 | Guild Wars 2 | 11.8 | 2,244 | -14.6 |
| 4 | 4 | Star Wars: The Old Republic | 7.9 | 1,507 | -7.0 |
| 5 | 9 | EVE Online | 5.6 | 1,064 | +56.2 |
| T6 | 5 | Tera | 4.8 | 917 | -2.4 |
| T6 | 7 | Final Fantasy XIV | 4.8 | 917 | +11.2 |
| 8 | 8 | Aion | 3.7 | 701 | -3.0 |
| 9 | 6 | Elder Scrolls Online | 3.6 | 684 | -17.8 |
| 10 | 10 | Runescape | 2.8 | 524 | +0.2 |
| 11 | -- | Lord of the Rings Online | 2.4 | 462 | +48.6 |
| 12 | -- | Maple Story | 2.1 | 391 | +47.0 |
Total Digital Dozen Hours: 19,031
After a Wildstar-fueled resurgence last week, the Xfire community's interest in MMORPGs waned again on Sunday. The 7.6% decline in the number of hours Xfire members played their favorite games was led by World of Warcraft (-961 hours) and Wildstar (-551 hours), while EVE Online (+383 hours) was notable for its fans increase in playtime Sunday. RIFT and Neverwinter fell off the list this week, replaced by Lord of the Rings Online and Maple Story.
Is There A Problem, Cupcake? - Last week I pointed to the seven games with the most successful starts on The Digital Dozen and pointed out that only one, Neverwinter, had a decline in its Digital Dozen score the week after it launched. Now add Wildstar to the list. While remaining #2 on the list, the Carbine game saw its score fall from 20.3 to 19.1. Is this a sign of trouble? Or just the result of launching the early access period on a Saturday? Time will tell.
Head-to Head - CCP decided to launch its Kronos release for EVE Online on the same day as the official launch of Wildstar. The result? Xfire players returned to New Eden, with the number of hours spent in space increasing by 56.2% Sunday. Will a speeded up release schedule of six weeks instead of six months keep Xfire members logging in?
Double-checking The Numbers - The success of the Wildstar launch highlights the continued struggles of Elder Scrolls Online. Last week marked the end of the first billing cycle for those who participated in early access and the number of hours spent by Xfire members playing the Zenimax game took another tumble. I double-checked the Xfire numbers with the numbers on Raptr to see if people really were spending 5.3 times more hours playing Wildstar than ESO. According to Raptr last night, Raptr members spent 571,257 hours playing Wildstar over the past 7 days as compared to 100,445 hours playing ESO (5.7 times more hours). So the difference is actually greater on Raptr than on Xfire.
If you have Raptr numbers, why not use those as well as Xfire? Don't more people make use of Raptr than Xfire now?
ReplyDeleteBecause the Raptr numbers are not easy to work with. Xfire is much more user-friendly for people doing the kind of writing I do. For instance, if I were to miss a day, I have 30 days to go back and see the Xfire numbers. The Raptr numbers change constantly. For instance, in the time I was writing this post, the number of hours for Wildstar plunged 30,000 hours.
DeleteAlso, you can see the Xfire numbers without having to sign up for Xfire. As far as I know, you have to download Raptr to get access to the statistics. That's important, as I think the data I provide should not be locked behind any type of wall, even though Raptr's is not monetary.