Oh, hello, I didn't see you there.
ChewieOnIce here.
Welcome to my first monthly stats round-up. I hope you're all having a great summer, doing whatever it is you do when the days are long, the weather is hot and the games release schedule is barren.
I picked up on stats from Dog of Thunder half way through last month, so bear with me as I whip the Statisticles into shape to collate all the numbers you need from this last month of gaming on TA. If you'd like a bit more of an intro for me and the Statisticles, check out the first stats article I did
last week.
This report is for the period August 1st to August 31st 2012.
Games Started69,422 TrueAchievements gamers started a total of 163,640 games between them (1,923 different games).
The top two games started this month,
Sleeping Dogs and
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, aren't a big surprise. It's been a very quiet month for retail releases, and the huge drop off in numbers after the top titles is particularly telling. However, that shouldn't undermine the fact that
Sleeping Dogs and
Darksiders II have been released to decent sales and positive reviews.
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron came out in the final week of the month and
Madden NFL 13 had only been out a day when the Statisticles put these charts together, so expect to see a lot more of them on next month's tables.
Persona 4: Arena and
Risen 2: Dark Waters are also new releases for the month, but they don't get much of a look in when pitted against AAA heavy-hitters, and languish fairly low down the table. The rest of the titles are a mixed bag from the last few months.
Top Retail Games Started
Deadlight is this month's big Arcade success story, despite some fairly polarizing reviews. Positive things such as a great art style and solid platforming were offset by some less than stellar voice acting and a particularly short campaign. Our resident review-smith osubluejacket
loved it.
Other new releases,
Dust: An Elysian Tail and
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, garner some decent numbers. I'd expect
Counter Strike in particular to hang around next month as it was released late in August and, well, it
is Counter Strike.
Rock Band Blitz will have a similar effect as it was released in the last few days of the month and has already proved its popularity in this week's
stats article.
Movie tie-in
The Expendables 2 Videogame, on the other hand, says a mild hello with a mid-table position. It'll be gone next month, I can guarantee it. Unfortunately, the same can probably be said for
Hybrid which, despite some decent
reviews, had a
rocky launch week and disappointing sales.
Top Arcade Games Started
It says a lot about Chillingo's
Roll in the Hole (WP) that it was only on the marketplace for three days when this chart was compiled by my Statisticles and it sits firmly on the top. Has the game been really aggressively marketed? Is it all positive word of mouth? Do people just download it because it has a fairly humorous and vaguely suggestive title? I wouldn't know: one of my now
deceased retired Statisticles, Edmund, sat on my Windows Phone, so I haven't had a chance to find out why it's so popular.
Other new releases of note include
Little Acorns (WP),
Pool Pro Online 3 (WP),
Sally's Spa (WP) and
Shoot 1UP (WP). However, none come close to the success that rolling in holes apparently brings.
It also says a lot about the Windows Phone marketplace when a
Deal of the Week title (
Need for Speed: Undercover (WP)) manages to take the number 2 spot. What it says a lot about, I'll leave you to figure out.
Top Windows Phone Games Started
Games Completed21,084 TrueAchievements gamers completed a total of 46,127 games between them (1,605 different games).
The new DLC released for
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and
Mass Effect 3 explain their place at the top of the chart, which isn't all that surprising. What may be surprising is
Sleeping Dogs number 2 spot. Despite its open-world nature, it would seem to be a fairly easy completion and I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to hang around on Games Completed for a while as its TA Ratio dwindles.
It also looks like quite a lot of people decided to knuckle under and finish off
Darksiders, before starting on its sequel, which also makes an appearance, albeit right near the bottom of the table.
Top Retail Games Completed
So,
Deadlight was a popular game to start
and to finish this month. There's that short campaign I was talking about earlier. The question is though, did people feel it was worth it? In fact, the same question could be posed for
Sleeping Dogs. If they could be wrapped up so quick, were they worth the green? Answers on a postcard...or in the comments below.
The Walking Dead and
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition maintain their perennial high spots, with the rest of the games on the list being basically a cross-section of what's available on the marketplace with easy completions, including a hefty dose of the usual
Fun Labs contenders.
Top Arcade Games Completed
We've got a similar story here with
Roll in the Hole, except that these games are so cheap, being 'worth it' doesn't necessarily come into it. Rolling in holes proves easy for many and I predict this game staying on here for a good long time.
Continuing Dog's tradition, '
Collapse! (WP) Watch 2012' shows that there are only 169 people left to finish the game before an astounding 100% completion is reached. Thinking about it, writing about it here is drawing more attention to the game, meaning people may decide to get it and then not finish it...Oh dear...
Forget the previous paragraph!
Top Windows Phone Games Completed
Achievements Won106,278 TrueAchievements gamers won a total of 3,414,089 achievements online between them (57,815 different achievements).
I squinted really hard at these figures to try and spot an outsider, but no, it's all dominated by those numerous, easy
Sleeping Dogs achievements and the easiest of the
Darksiders II achievements. This is mostly due to the massive popularity of those particular games compared to others this month.
Top Retail Achievements Won
It's a clean sweep! Did I mention already that
Deadlight was popular and easy?
If you take anything away from this article, it's that coming up with achievement names is a cool job and when people are clever and creative with them, it's awesome. I'm sure you can tell, but
Deadlight gets it dead right with its achievement names.
Top Arcade Achievements Won
The Windows Phone achievements are pretty evenly split between the ridiculously popular and easy
Roll in the Hole and
Need for Speed: Undercover, with a few stragglers for good luck. I think we'll see a decent dose of
Roll in the Hole here next month too.
Top Windows Phone Achievements Won
Thanks to the popularity of
Sleeping Dogs and
Darksiders II, Action-Adventure slides ahead of Shooter, but I don't expect this large advantage to last for long.
Madden NFL 13 and
Rock Band Blitz also help to add a modicum of heft to their respective genres (that's Sports and Music & Rhythm, in case you were wondering).
Total TrueAchievements won by Genre-
Action-Adventure31,345,447
So that brings us to the end of August. All in all, not a hugely eventful month. It's definitely the quiet period. In fact, was that a tumbleweed that just rolled by?
Until next time, keep enjoying rolling in holes, sleeping like dogs and...lighting the dead?!?