Today I am taking a quick look at Champions Online and Rift in Raptr and X-Fire. Rift worked specifically in Raptr for tracking players. Champions Online has both Raptr and X-Fire player listings. X-Fire has been having issues with the client data from CO, but luckily it came back with a bang.
Rift launched it's "Try before you Buy" beta yesterday. I wanted to see how that affects player numbers using Raptr. Rift's beta launch was quite rocky Tuesday, but for good reason. The amount of keys that went out and the fact that 25 users could then use one of those keys, meant we should see some good activity.
Raptr had 753 players in Rift yesterday. According to my chart from Monday, that would ensconce Rift in 4th place. Now, even though it would place well versus Monday, I wondered how our top games were doing on the 25th versus Rift? LOTRO had 869 players. EvE had 1041. DC Universe had 1165. So, EvE moved up, but overall, roughly all in the same spots.
This does prove to be interesting to look at.
EvE was not affected by Rift play, but it looks like LOTRO was. Same genre, thus same player with interests. LOTRO's drop was significant from Monday. Bet quite a few are testing the waters.
DCUO also fell, and for good reason, which we will see soon.
Overall, I feel Raptr is giving some VERY good data on trends. Also, this is a good sign for Rift overall. We will see how Wednesday does for charting. Check my Twitter for those numbers tomorrow.
Another "launch" of sorts is Champions Online. The 25th marked it's change to Free to Play. Both Raptr and X-Fire showed some interesting data.
X-Fire: CO - 535 Players
Now if we compare that to the last known data for X-Fire and Champions, they were hitting roughly 86 players. That is a huge upswing. Should be interesting to track CO now and see how this affects City of Heroes and DC Universe on our Monday chart.
For Raptr, Champions also showed a massive surge.
Raptr: CO - 686 Players
Compared to the Monday chart, which had CO at 161 players, this boost was quite significant. As time progresses, it will be interesting to see how well CO retains it's new player base, and if it will grow or shrink.
In conclusion, Rift pulled in quite a few tourists and could be a great launch, numbers wise. I will be more interested to see how these numbers hold up for the next day. As well, I REALLY want to see a Sunday ranking for Rift (weekender beta) and see how the numbers roll.
As to Champions Online, it has proven that free to play is the new market...and that any game that is on its last legs needs to explore this F2P system before shutting down for good.
Cheers
2 comments:
Purely anecdotal but I can tell you that usually there were only 2 instances of Millennium City spawned (occasionally 3) for the last 6 months or so. Last night there were 13 instances when I logged in. The instances are capped at (I think 100 players) and a quick (non-exhaustive) scan of the instance list for MC showed between 50 and 80 in each zone. I haven't seen the game that busy since the fist few months after launch.
Of course the real test is what's it look like at 15, 30, and 60 days.
Last I checked, the Rift beta event was scheduled to end on Friday afternoon, so no weekend numbers. However, I kind of expect that to get extended.
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