In October, the MMO trends show the impact of major expansions on Warframe, Star Wars The Old Republic, and Guild Wars 2.
Please note that the trends, the numbers are not representative, but come from users of a PC program called Raptr, which is installed alongside graphics cards. The numbers reflect the hours players spent with the program in PC games. We would like to give you representative, official numbers, but there are none and Raptr is the best we have.
The MMO trends are a bit late this time, clearly showing the impact of “fresh content” in online games.
Blizzard had little to offer in October – WoW, D3 lose
Unbelievably solid at rank 1, as in previous months, League of Legends (LoL). Every fourth hour that Raptr users spent on their PCs was dedicated to Riot’s MOBA.
There has been nothing new for a while in World of Warcraft, losing 8.6% of playtime and one position. This is likely to continue until summer 2016. It seems that Blizzard wants to really focus back on its MMORPG only with the expansion Legion.
In World of Tanks there is also a loss of 7.7% of playtime, but it still climbs up because Diablo 3, after the boost from the new season, is now falling again. D3 loses 53% of its playtime. November looks quite grim as well. The next big surge in playtime is likely to come in January with Season 5 and the new patch.
The trend for Heroes of the Storm is also downsloping.
The Shining Winners: Guild Wars 2, Warframe, SWTOR
Heart of Thorns was released at the end of October and it immediately impacts the playtime of Guild Wars 2 . It went up by 10.8% and thus reached rank 12. A further jump can be expected in November.
A major leap can be noted for SWTOR , where “Knights of the Fallen Empire” was released on October 27, pre-order players could start a week earlier. Playtime increased by a strong 44.5%. This might be the comeback game of the year.
And Warframe also received a boost of 17% due to several content patches: Jordas Rule was released in October, bringing Warframe to rank 15. This free-to-play game also presents itself significantly improved.
Not so good: Final Fantasy XIV
It wasn’t so good in October for Final Fantasy XIV, as it lost 24.3% and is close to dropping out of the top 20. After Heavensward, the development team took a break, which was still in full swing in October. Players complained about “too little endgame content.” This is always deadly for playtime. In early November, however, Patch 3.1 was released, the vacation is over, and they’re picking up speed again.
