MMO Trends Dezember: World of Warcraft und SWTOR bärenstark, ArcheAge schwächelt

In December, according to Raptr, World of Warcraft, Smite, SWTOR, and Hearthstone prove to be strong and show significant increases, while the sand park MMO ArcheAge drops by 22%.

The Raptr numbers for December are in. They indicate how many hours Raptr users have spent in individual PC games. We present the statistics to you from month to month. Since the numbers are relatively stable, a trend can be discerned regarding how the individual games develop. However, one cannot really speak of a ranking, as the group of over 20 million Raptr users likely does not represent the global player base sufficiently.

Why we are reliant on such indirect numbers and cannot provide official player counts, you can find out in this article: Player counts in MMOs: Requested, embellished, concealed

World of Warcraft and Hearthstone the big winners in December

World of Warcraft - Warlords of Draenor Edition

Blizzard had an excellent December. In December, player numbers are anyway 5% higher than in November, and the big beneficiaries were two Blizzard products.
At Hearthstone, the expansion “Goblins vs Gnomes” was released, and playtime increased sharply by 63%.

At World of Warcraft, one might have expected a somewhat weaker result in December compared to November, as hardcore players are already at level 100 and have returned to a more normal rhythm. The opposite is the case: WoW was able to gain almost 10% and is thus very strong in second place behind League of Legends.

ArcheAge in free fall

Things do not look so strong for the MMO ArcheAge. Indeed, Raptr is precisely the statistic where ArcheAge can shine. Because Raptr tracks hours, and ArcheAge rewards players for every hour logged in, even if they are doing nothing, with additional energy.

However, ArcheAge was alongside Diablo 3 the only game that lost playtime from the Top 20. Compared to November, players spent 22% less time.

World of Tanks, Smite, Star Wars: The Old Republic all increase

While it was relatively quiet during the Christmas period for Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV, other games saw significant increases in December:

The action MOBA Smite is slowly establishing itself at the top. With a new god and a lucrative event, Smite increased playtime by 21% compared to November.
World of Tanks had its 9.5 patch and several events in December. This brought the tank game from Wargaming an increase in playtime of 26%.
And at Star Wars: The Old Republic, the long-awaited expansion about Revan was released in December. Players with Raptr spent 33% more hours in SWTOR than in November.