Games Played 2019 Edition

For those who have been reading this blog for some time you will know I have a yearly tradition of doing a rundown of the games that I played during the year and comparing them to the same periods over previous years. I have this weird habit of keeping track of what I am playing in a given month and tracking this in spreadsheet form. I started doing this in 2013 and thanks to my other habit of keeping track of spreadsheets I have gone back as far as 2012 with some level of accuracy. I could likely go back further… but that is a job for another time. Essentially based on screenshots, what I am blogging about and what I am talking about on the podcast I can create a fairly accurate record of the games played during a given year. For those who are prepared to descend into madness you can view the entire spreadsheet here.

The Top 10 of 2019

The rules are simple… if I played a game in a given month I fill in a box and then tabulate the number of filled in boxes giving me how many months in a given year I played a game. This is not nearly as granular as I would have liked, but trying to keep a journal of every game I played on a specific day truly would be madness. From this we can see some trends about my tastes during a given year and how these have changed over time. The games I played over the most months are as follows.

• Diablo 3 – PC and Switch – Played All 12 Months
• Dragalia Lost – Android – Played All 12 Months
• MTG Arena – PC – Played All 12 Months
• Destiny 2 – 10 Total Months
• Final Fantasy XIV – 9 Total Months
• World of Warcraft Classic – 7 Total Months (counting beta time)
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – 6 Total Months (counting beta time)
• Elder Scrolls Online – 6 Total Months
• Anthem – 5 Total Months
• Pokemon Go – 5 Total Months

Now lets take a look to see how this compares to last year, as there are several changes that are worth talking about.

First off there are some significant games that are completely missing from the list. World of Warcraft for example which still reigns as the game I have played for the most months total is completely missing from the top ten. Additionally Monster Hunter World which came on with a vengeance last year is also missing from the list because I more or less have been waiting for the PC release of Iceborne given that I have little to no interest in playing on the console release. I took a break in Destiny 2 for a few months and because of fun seasonal events and the switch release I have played Diablo 3 significantly more often this year. The release of an excellent expansion in the form of Shadowbringers also leapfrogged Final Fantasy XIV several positions. Dragalia Lost had not quite launched early enough to make the list for last year but was a nearly daily fixture in my life in this past year. Both Elder Scrolls Online and Pokemon Go have been on the decline in my free time, so both dropped significantly in the numbers.

The Top 15 of All Time

Now we are getting into the territory of the images being impossible to read, but the above sheet snippet shows the top 15 games of all time. However for sake of sanity I am going to bullet point the list so you can see it more clearly.

• World of Warcraft – 60 Months
• Destiny / Destiny 2 – 55 Months
• Final Fantasy XIV – 55 Months
• Elder Scrolls Online – 44 Months
• Diablo 3 – 41 Months
• Rift – 39 Months
• Pokemon Go – 25 Months
• MTG Arena – 21 Months
• Dragalia Lost – 16 Months
• Monster Hunter World – 16 Months
• Guild Wars 2 – 14 Months
• Minecraft – 14 Months
• ArcheAge – 13 Months
• Fallout 4 – 13 Months
• Wildstar – 13 Months

World of Warcraft continues to reign at the top of the list, but its lead on the other options is shrinking because I am continuing to play that game less. Destiny and FFXIV are now tied for second place, and I fully expect that the Destiny Franchise will have potentially knocked Warcraft out of that top spot. Elder Scrolls knocked Rift out of the previous 4th place but didn’t gain as much ground this year as I didn’t play it nearly as often. Diablo 3 has risen up to claim the 5th spot and gained significant ground considering there was a big gap before between 5 and 6. Rift continues to descend the list because I am not actively playing it and also did not spend much time playing it last year either. What I find most interesting is the last three on the list because if you had asked me to guess as to what this list would like like ArcheAge, Fallout 4 and Wildstar would not have been still hanging on after all of this time. For reference you can check out last years post where I am pulling the comparisons from.

Other Interesting Data

Some other interesting data worth noting. In 2018 I played 70 unique games and this year I played considerably fewer, only racking up 48 games. That is still a lot of games but I felt like for a large chunk of the year I had a pretty stable list of titles that I kept bouncing back and forth between. The weirdest thing is… that if you look where I spent a lot of my time they are not on the same titles that I listed in my top games of 2019 post. I am a sucker for “comfort gaming” and there are a lot of times I keep playing games that present familiar patterns. I’ve spent a huge chunk of my vacation playing The Witcher 3 and I have loved it, and I guess my hope for this new year is to spend more time playing single player games since my multiplayer communities have been waning.

In 2018 I played 33 games that I would describe as a “Singleton” or a game that I only poked my head into for a single month. In 2019 that only represented 19 total games and it feels like that is really where the difference between the years comes into play. I was seemingly more adventurous in 2018 than I was in 2019 and I hope I can capture that spirit for 2020 and get out of my comfort zone a bit more often. For those interested in more trending information along this topic you can see a number of my posts since starting this tradition.

• Games Played 2018
• Games Played 2017
• Games Played 2016
• Games Played 2015 – I hadn’t quite figured out the format yet

And with that… I wish you all the happiest of New Years after sharing my past year with you.