From the Press Release
eSports drove some of the biggest changes in August’s Most Played Games list, with League of Legends and World of Tanks receiving a surge of game time thanks to their respective eSports events, LoL’s LCS Playoffs and WoT’s WGLNA Season 4 Finals. On the other hand, DOTA 2 play time dropped significantly compared to July, when The International tournament took place. Overall, game time among Raptr members was up 2.4% this month, bucking the usual downward summer trend.
Highlights
League of Legends remained lodged in the top spot again and, for the first time, accounted for over 20% of all PC play time among Raptr members. The game received a slight bump in play time early in the month due in part to patch 4.15, which (most notably) introduced a new tier to the ranking system. However, the major driver in the MOBA’s 18.72% month-over-month play time increase was the LCS NA Playoffs that occurred in late August.
World of Warcraft edged out DOTA 2 as play time increased 17.40% compared to July, with a peak that coincided with a 50% price drop for the Mists of Pandaria expansion.
DOTA 2 slipped a rank in August, thanks to a 27.87% gameplay time drop versus the previous month, when the game enjoyed a big boost from The International tournament. Minor updates (workshop tools entering beta, tweaks to mastery gems) couldn’t claw back much time.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive remained in the fourth spot thanks to the ESL One Cologne 2014 CS:GO Championship. Gameplay time doubled during the finals compared to the previous week in August; players were able to spectate from within the CS:GO launcher, so that’s undoubtedly a factor.
One game on a very strong, non-eSports related upswing is Smite, which gained five ranks and posted a 170% gameplay increase over the previous month. That’s due to a few factors: a Free Gem Sunday on 8/24 was by far the biggest day of the month; a content patch (including a new god, Cabrakan); and new Smite Rewards in Raptr’s Rewards Store.
While Diablo III lost a rank, we expect that to change in September as the 2.1.0 patch released at the end of August was kind of a big deal, with new modes, content, and limited time in-game bonuses. Daily play time is trending way up as a result.
Guild Wars 2 rose five spots due largely to a 50%-off sale that coincided with the second anniversary of the title.
World of Tanks climbed the Most Played board thanks to the WGLNA Season 4 Finals, which took place at the end of the month. The game also received regular weekend gameplay bumps thanks to various weekend-related events, contests, and giveaways.
Star Wars: The Old Republic rose six places in August with an 11.60% gameplay time increase compared to July. Early access to the Galactic Stronghold expansion kicked in on 8/19 and appears to be a main driver there.
Thanks to a massive 2K Steam sale, Civilization V climbed two spots. Though the current gameplay trend is decreasing, we’ll have to wait and see if it’ll get a resurgence in the coming months in anticipation of Civilization: Beyond Earth, which launches in October.
Free-to-play shooter Crossfire had a 189.01% hike in gameplay time, bumping it up to 19th place. The game featured weapon sales as well as new game content in its Rise of the Champions patch in mid-August.
With a late July release, Firefall made a 40-spot jump into the top 20 for August. Not too surprisingly, Firefall is converting more players from fellow F2P shooter Warframe than any other game, with DOTA 2 coming in second.
Note: The Share number by each game represents that title’s gameplay time as a percentage of the total time spent on all the PC games played by Raptr members, and is useful for comparing the relative amount of playtime between particular games.