The MMO trends in May paint a poor picture for MMORPGs on PC. Some major titles are struggling, including WoW and Guild Wars 2.
Raptr evaluates the data from their tool each month, which players have installed on PC. This tells them how many hours users have spent in individual games.
The statistics do not provide a representative picture, as not everyone has this tool installed. However, it can act as a trend indicator, showing us how many users of this tool played a game in May compared to the previous month. Moreover, we simply have no better numbers.
Another bad month for MMORPGs: The reason is content drought and The Witcher III
As in April GTA V, a new offline game makes a significant impact in May, causing many MMOs to lose playtime. It is, as expected, The Witcher III. Among the game, which many consider a true RPG gem, MMORPGs are particularly suffering.
World of Warcraft loses its second place after more than a year
The strongest MMORPG “World of Warcraft” is hit particularly hard. In May, it continues to experience a content drought and is now paying the price. 13% of playtime was lost. The losses in playtime, combined with those from previous months, were enough to say goodbye to its cemented second place. It had been there since August 2014.
Not only WoW, but other Blizzard games were also not as attractive to Ratpr users on PC in May as they were in April. Diablo 3 lost 33% of playtime compared to the previous month, Heroes of the Storm nearly 10%. Only Hearthstone shows an upward trend, increasing by about 10%. A new patch for Diablo 3 is expected to be released soon.
Fantasy MMORPGs lose, ArcheAge drops out of the top 20 completely
As it was for WoW, it also looked bleak for fantasy MMORPGs Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV in April, as both FF14 and GW2 lost places.
No new content really emerged for any of the three MMORPGs in May. However, this has since changed for Final Fantasy XIV, where Square Enix released the new expansion Heavensward. In WoW, patch 6.2 came out. There could be some significant changes in the MMO trends in June.
Only Guild Wars 2 is still waiting for a date for the new expansion. But a new patch arrived in June as well.
For the sandbox MMO ArcheAge , its time in the top 20 is over. The downward trend of the controversially discussed game had been apparent for some time. ArcheAge had stormed into the Raptr charts as a newcomer at the end of last year. Some game mechanics encouraged players to spend a lot of time in the game.
The big winners are World of Tanks and SWTOR
The biggest winner in May 2015, alongside Witcher III, is Wargaming with “World of Tanks“. They had strong promotional campaigns again – the playtime of Ratpr users went up by 117%. The similarly situated War Thunder also seems largely unaffected by The Witcher III and climbed one rank.
With the MMORPG classic Star Wars: The Old Republic, they celebrated “May the 4th be with you” on May 4th with promotional activities and could increase their player base by 16%. With everything planned, 2015 might indeed bring a second or third spring for SWTOR.
