Dragon Age: Inquisition and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare debuted in the Most Played list this month. World of Warcraft’s latest expansion gave the ten-year-old MMO an upsurge, while Spider Solitaire made a surprise return into the top 20 after an absence of over a year. The guilty parties know who they are.
Highlights
League of Legends remained in first place in November, despite losing 15.88% of playtime compared to October. The game peaked in the beginning of the month, following LoL’s Halloween sales event. While gameplay remained steady throughout most of the month, the 4.20 update brought with it some long queues that significantly impacted play time.
World of Warcraft’s Warlords of Draenor likely pulled time from LoL, as well as other major games. The MMO’s monthly play time was up 71.3% versus October. As expected, the expansion and game’s ten-year anniversary events significantly impacted daily play time, which roughly doubled after the launch of the Draenor expansion and remained strong through the end of November.
The rest of the top five games weren’t so fortunate. DOTA 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Smite, which beat out ArcheAge for fifth place, all saw a net drop in hours. Though DOTA 2 and CS:GO suffered double digits drops (12.49% and 11.59%, respectively), Smite was down less than one percent.
Archeage, meanwhile, cratered by 39.97%; hence Smite’s modest climb up the rankings.
The downward trend continued with Minecraft (-11.70%), Diablo III (down nearly 45% — we blame WoW), and Hearthstone (-13.11%, though we expect a rebound in December thanks to Goblins vs Gnomes).
Chart newcomer Dragon Age: Inquisition made a strong entrance into November’s Most Played, landing in tenth place despite a late November release.
While slipping in the ranks, World of Tanks managed to gain 7.72% play time compared to October. Though the WGLNA Gold League Qualifying rounds happened throughout the month, play time was at its peak during Thanksgiving weekend, due to XP multipliers and holiday deals on premium goods.
Final Fantasy XIV increased in play time by 20.97%. The rise could be attributed to late October and early November hotfixes to the game, as well as the release of the Game of the Year edition that offered additional 60 free days of adventure (plus all the previously released content). Mid-month DDOS attacks, which caused login difficulties, did not have a major impact on play time.
Warframe and Guild Wars 2 each rose in rank, despite losing play time in November compared to October. Warframe held a Movember community event that led to a Guinness World Record. Guild Wars 2’s Tangled Path content released with new areas, items, skins, and more.
Call of Duty: Advance Warfare — always more of a console juggernaut — launched in early November, and based on current trends we may not see it in December’s Most Played.
For the first time since October 2013, Spider Solitaire made its way back into Most Played. Turns out Thanksgiving isn’t just about turkey, football, and arguing with relatives — it’s also about playing Solitaire, as gameplay hours for the month peaked on the 27th.