Good morrow everyone. I hope your weekend has been full of exciting travails through Pandora with your trusty [INSERT WEAPON OF CHOICE]. If not, I assume you've got your tickets booked and are just awaiting your VISA applications to be approved. Remember, if you
don't have guns and/or explosives in your case, you won't be allowed to board the plane.
In the comments for
last week's article, a few people cried out that the Stats were getting stale. I shed a silent tear.
However, I then realised that it wasn't my charming and witty banter that was at fault (I mean, how could it be, right!?); it was the numbers that were leaving you numb. In other words, the figures felt flat and the tables were turning tedious. The first thing I did was
execute fire my worst-performing Statisticles and then I put on my Thinking Beret. WARNING: tl;dr incoming!
Firstly, the figures themselves. Unfortunately, these last few weeks have been pretty dry, with barely any interesting new releases to shake up the numbers. This should all hopefully change in the next few weeks as we enter the busy Fall release schedule.
The other thing to consider is the nature of the Stats themselves. We choose a selection of Stats to track, which includes Games Started, Games Completed and Achievements Won over the 3 platforms: Retail, Arcade and Phone. We also give you a breakdown of the popularity of games according to their Genre. These tables are unlikely to change as the main point of the Stats is to see what all of our TAers find the most popular week-by-week and month-by-month.
I'm very open to the idea of introducing other Stats tables to the articles either on a regular basis or as special guest Stats. However, there are two point to consider. Firstly, I unfortunately can't produce Stats using the TA score or TA ratio for games and achievements, as these numbers are always being recalculated and move up and down regularly. It would be impossible to pin down anything to present. Secondly, I can't produce Stats that highlight the performance of a particular gamer, such as highest TA Ratio unlocked. Again, these numbers are likely to change as the week progresses. Also, some gamers would not welcome the attention that being on the front page may bring them. Not everyone appreciates the limelight and it would be especially frustrating if it turned out that the gamer highlighted had simply modded an unobtainable achievement.
indeed.
That's not to say that I don't welcome some changes and interesting new numbers to look at. I've super-glued my Thinking Beret to my head to come up with some ideas and if you've got some good ideas of your own to shake up the Stats articles - give it a new lick of paint, if you will - then feel free to
PM me with your thoughts.
For now, it's mostly business as usual, but I've added a little treat at the bottom of the article for those of you who slogged through all that jibber jabber.
This report is for the period September 10th to September 16th 2012.
Games Started16,699 TrueAchievements gamers started a total of 25,717 games between them (1,622 different games).
Two new releases blast to the top of Retail Games Started this week. EA's annual-release sports game,
NHL 13, proves the most popular, but almost exactly half as popular as EA's annual-release sports game,
Madden NFL 13, when it came out
two weeks before. Definitive proof that hockey is exactly half as popular as football? I think so.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 may be the largest
Tekken ever, but is it the most popular? It high-kicks its way to second place on this week's chart. However, despite glowing reviews, the numbers aren't fabulous, especially seeing as it follows...hockey. I jest, I jest. Hockey's
great.
One makes a point
not to kill people, the other kills
a lot of people...in slow motion:
Max Payne 3 and
Batman: Arkham City make graceful exits from the table this week. Well, as graceful as two battle-hardened, world-weary, hard-ass detectives can be. However, the battle-hardened, world-weary, hard-ass-assin, Ezio, refuses to bow out, clinging to the bottom of the chart with
Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
Top Retail Games Started
Last week,
Mark of the Ninja made its mark on the top of the table and this week it proves that this particular mark is hard to remove, as it beats new releases
Joe Danger 2: The Movie and
Double Dragon Neon to the top with a significant lead. Ninjas beating stuntmen and twin-brother brawlers: sounds like 80s movie heaven.
The previous week's sales continue to make an impact on this week's table with
Alan Wake's American Nightmare,
Stacking and
The Simpsons Arcade all holding on to high spots. This week's PopCap
Deal of the Week (for the third time!) also explains
Bejeweled 3 and
Plants vs. Zombies's appearances. Man, you guys do love a good (and bad) Arcade sale, don't you!
Top Arcade Games Started
Roll in the Hole (WP) rolls down from its comfortable lead this week as new release
Crimson Dragon: Side Story (WP) and Deal of the Week title
Monster Island (WP) claim the top spots comfortably.
Crimson Dragon: Side Story is a spin-off of the upcoming XBLA title
Crimson Dragon, itself the spiritual successor to the popular
Panzer Dragoon series. Also, you get to play as a dragon! On your phone!
For those of you who had the game before or heard about its buggy achievements, yes
Monster Island has been
fixed now.
Top Windows Phone Games Started
Games Completed7,244 TrueAchievements gamers completed a total of 10,018 games between them (1,155 different games).
Like last week, the recent DLC for
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and
Mass Effect 3 continue to prove relatively easy completions, or at least popular enough to place them high at the chart. This week, we can add
Battlefield 3 to that list, as the 'Armored Kill' DLC also proves to be both very popular and relatively easy to wrap up.
Top Retail Games Completed
Yawn,
The Walking Dead. Yawn, easy to finish. Interestingly enough, the numbers are tailing off significantly, with less than half the completions for the zombie title than last week. At this rate, it'll settle back in with the rest of the titles right when the next episode gets released and shoots it back to the top again.
A few of those deals titles pop up again:
The Simpsons Arcade,
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures and
Stacking. In fact, that's the same exact titles as last week. Back then, I said that I doubted they'd be there again, but I was wrong. There are just so few big numbers or titles on the chart, they continue to stick around like a bad smell. Not many of you manage to complete
Alan Wake's American Nightmare so easily, eh?
Top Arcade Games Completed
Even though
Roll in the Hole has sunk down the Games Started table, it continues to stay strong on Games Completed with, at this moment, over 68% of people who started it having completed it. I expect this position to be retained as more gamers shoot for the easy completion, even as the number of people who start it drops off. I'll be keeping an eye on the completion percentage in the coming weeks to see if this becomes the new
Collapse! (WP).
Top Windows Phone Games Completed
Achievements Won45,550 TrueAchievements gamers won a total of 558,990 achievements online between them (44,349 different achievements).
Oh look, there's a surprise. All of the 'Armored Kill' achievements for
Battlefield 3 settle in at the top of the Retail Achievements Won.
It's not a complete DLC-fest like last week, however, as a bunch of the easiest achievements for
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 pull up the rear, with a solitary achievement for
NHL 13 providing some lean meat in the
Battlefield/
Tekken sandwich. And, seeing as I'm now committed to that terrible metaphor,
Landowner in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the...plate?
Top Retail Achievements Won
It's 'Zombie vs Ninja' on Arcade Achievements Won and ninja looks to have taken the lead. As
The Walking Dead completion numbers slip, so too do the Achievements Won for the shambling brain-eater.
Mark of the Ninja sneaks into the top spots comfortably. Then again, zombies have an unnatural staying power, so expect to see those achivements sticking around as the ninja achievements slip away into the shadows in the week to come.
Top Arcade Achievements Won
Hooray! No
Roll in the Hole in sight.
Crimson Dragon: Side Story and
Monster Island prove the most popular amongst achievement hunters this week. The majority of
Monster Island's achievements seem pretty simple (30% of players completed it) but, apart from a couple of easy ones at the start,
Crimson Dragon: Side Story looks a little tougher (0.31% of players completed it). Don't let that dissuade you, though: did I mention you play as a freaking dragon!?!
Top Windows Phone Achievements Won
The presence of
NHL 13 and
Madden NFL 13 push up Sports a little on the Genre chart. Other than that, however, it's pretty much a copy-paste of the last couple of weeks.
Expect
Borderlands 2 to bump up Role-Playing significantly, next week. Yes, we class it as Role-Playing, not Shooter. Discuss.
Total TrueAchievements won by Genre-
Action-Adventure4,339,352
There we go. Hope that wasn't too boring for you.
Finally, as promised, here's a little treat for you. Some of you have wanted to know a little bit more about my Ewok helpers, the Statistcles. I don't know why; they're just dirty, smelly, furry, foul little beasts who live to please. Anyhow, here's a picture of one of the little jerks, Archibald, whipping up numbers for me with his Abacus and Sharp EL-8 calculator.