Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Polling in all the wrong places

Since my main goal is to work on gaining various sources of data to track rankings of specific MMO's, I want to see another avenue of data and how it holds up to our main "game" of tracking.
Using my standard chart, I headed on over to MMORPG.COM and decided to check out some numbers there using their ratings poll.

MMORPG.COM uses a readers rating system to poll players on their favorite games. I thought to myself...how would our chart look if I took the rating system used HERE and see how our chart would compare to how much the games are played on the X-Fire and Raptr services..

Lets take a gander.
MMORPG.COM User Ratings
  1. DC Universe - 8.34 (124 Votes)
  2. Lord of the Rings Online - 8.25 (3659 votes)
  3. EvE Online - 8.25 (7235 votes)
  4. Warhammer Online - 8.23 (1963 votes)
  5. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 8.11 (1034 votes)
  6. Age of Conan - 7.97 (2145 votes)
  7. Aion - 7.81 (677 votes)
  8. Champions Online - 7.75 (257 votes)
  9. Star Trek Online - 6.57 (386 Votes)
  10. Final Fantasy XIV - 6.28 (272 votes)
Personally, I think there is a bit more of a bias when you use something like MMORPG, due to the fact that people who just really hate a game or even the developer, can skew the numbers by voting a 1 on any game they choose. Whether they have played or not.

But, I also think we can get a view of what IS popular, and see how it holds up versus their rivals.

Thanks to DC Universe being so new...players will not be so jaded here. Ranking at the top makes sense. New launch, new fun, equals players being happy.
And as we can see, DCUO ranks well across the board both here and in Raptr. This will change over time though as more votes come in (and the 30 days free goes away).

Holding up the next two spots is Deja Vu.

LOTRO and EvE both holding the top ratings here. Also note the number of votes. This proves interesting and I will look at that later in this post.

Look at that. WAR holds up well when being reviewed by players. High vote count and great reviews. So, then why are so many people not playing anymore? I assume a huge skew from launch of people who REALLY wanted an RvR game, and throwing 10's at it due to the players need for PvP.

Moving down the list a little, Aion seems to hold a VERY low spot here. Again, I feel a huge skew due to players voting, even after just 30 days and throwing it off balance. Also, I smell an Anti-NCSoft voting group keeping Aion down.

Finally, at the bottom is FFXIV. This holds up to X-Fire ratings. It also meshes with overall reviews of the game from various news sites and bloggers who have played.

Now, of note, if we look at the games ranked on their VOTES instead of their ranking, we may see something different. Lets check that out.

MMORPG.COM User Ratings by Votes
  1. EvE Online - (7235 votes) 8.25 
  2. Lord of the Rings Online - (3659 votes) 8.25 
  3. Age of Conan - (2145 votes) 7.97 
  4. Warhammer Online - (1963 votes) 8.23 
  5. Dungeons & Dragons Online - (1034 votes) 8.11
  6. Aion - (677 votes) 7.81 
  7. Star Trek Online - (386 Votes) 6.57 
  8. Final Fantasy XIV - (272 votes) 6.28 
  9. Champions Online - (257 votes) 7.75 
  10. DC Universe - (124 Votes) 8.34 
Something happens here. We see how certain games garner a larger audience who feel compelled to have their say about the games they enjoy (or hate even).

EvE and LOTRO are back at the top, but EvE seems to garner a more committed audience.  But, even more compelling is the audience structure of Age of Conan. It seems the divide of players here who ran to MMORPG to vote, helps skew this game much lower in ratings. 
So many felt the need to voice their opinion of AoC it seems.

Aion for having so few votes, strikes me as odd of how it ranks here.  I am almost compelled to believe that the audience for that particular game do not frequent MMORPG, thus the opinion skews lower.

STO ranking higher than Champions has been what I have deduced from the X-Fire game.

Of course, DCUO ranking so low here makes sense. I expect that number to grow over time.

Overall, we continue to get a sense of how well loved EvE and LOTRO are. This holds up well across all ranking systems. But, as we may have seen from our previous poll from FFXIV, it may actually be region specific.

Alright, thats enough for now.

Tomorrow we will visit with the Rift beta from Raptr.

Cheers

1 comment:

Longasc said...

Thumbs up for your effort to collect and compare all that data!

EVE already ranked high on MMORPG.com, WoW always gets shafted on this page! :)

A reason to love this page, where not the forums! Uuuh.