Skyrim the Most Played Game of 2011
The popular video game tracking and networking service Raptr recently released their Most Played Games of 2011 report, which presents in great detail the behavior of their network of gamers across major platforms. This year-end report reveals some very interesting trends, the main one of course being that Skyrim was the most played game of 2011.
However, the title ‘most played game’ is a tad misleading. This conclusion is based on a combination of statistics including but not limited to overall playtime. This makes the report more accurate in context because it takes into account the variance in time between releases, eliminating the disadvantage of late entries (Skyrim was released in November). The three factors in play are total playtime, average playtime per person, and average session length.
The military FPS giant MW3 beat Skyrim by a 9% margin when it came down to total playtime, not surprising considering its record-breaking release sales numbers and huge mainstream following. When it came down to playtime per person, Skyrim beat MW3 by a few hours.
The stat that pushed Skyrim over the edge was average session length coming in at an eye-reddening 2.92 hours per session, beating MW3 by almost a whole hour. For those familiar with the Elder Scrolls series, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Gamers stay glued in front of their screens for hours engrossed in this open-world RPG’s rich exploration and story while a fast-paced FPS experience has less tendency to make players lose track of time.
You can read Raptr’s full report here, complete with the most played games of every genre and some other interesting gameplay stats from 2011.
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