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Six Sports Games Make Xbox Live's 2012 Most-Played List Stuck
Posted on January 25, 2013 at 11:45 AM.
Microsoft's Larry Hryb, better known to gamers as Major Nelson, recently posted his year-end tally of the 20 most-played Xbox 360 games from 2012.

The following list includes both Xbox 360 retail games and Games On Demand, with the rankings averaging the number of unique users per day who were connected to Xbox Live from January through December of 2012:

Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on average unique users per day)
  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
  2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
  3. Halo 4
  4. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
  5. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  6. FIFA Soccer 13
  7. FIFA Soccer 12
  8. Battlefield 3
  9. Halo: Reach
  10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  11. Borderlands 2
  12. Assassin’s Creed III
  13. Skyrim
  14. Madden NFL 13
  15. Gears of War 3
  16. NBA 2K13
  17. NBA 2K12
  18. Far Cry 3
  19. Grand Theft Auto IV
  20. Forza Motorsport 4
Clearly, gamers were playing plenty of FIFA and NBA 2K all year-round, as both the 2012 and 2013 editions of those games made the list. Madden NFL 12 surprisingly did not chart despite outselling NBA 2K12 at retail. Perhaps Madden NFL 12's owners were playing the game predominantly offline during 2012?

Mid-tier sports franchises like WWE and NCAA Football, which are hovering around the 1 million units sold mark, simply lacked a large enough Xbox 360 fanbase to complete with the triple-A sports series on this list, as Madden, NBA 2K and even Forza are each selling two to three million copies globally on Microsoft's system.

Another question to ask, is if companies like EA Sports and 2K Sports were not regularly deactivating the online capabilities of their older sports titles, would titles like FIFA 11 or NBA 2K11 have made the leaderboard?


Top Xbox Live Arcade (based on full versions purchased)
  1. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
  2. Trials Evolution
  3. The Walking Dead
  4. Pinball FX2
  5. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
  6. Castle Crashers
  7. Gotham City Impostors
  8. I Am Alive
  9. Fruit Ninja Kinect
  10. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD
  11. Trials HD
  12. Magic 2013
  13. Fez
  14. Dungeon Defenders
  15. Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
  16. Peggle
  17. The Simpsons Arcade Game
  18. REAL STEEL
  19. Toy Soldiers: Cold War
  20. Full House Poker
It's easy to see why publisher Ubisoft was thrilled to include the Trials team in its expanding developer portfolio, as Trials Evolution trails only Minecraft in total Xbox Live Arcade sales. Trials HD, despite being released in 2009, nearly broke into this year's top ten, showing that great games will continue to find new fans as positive word of mouth grows.

Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, despite poor reviews from Operation Sports and from the rest of the internet, managed to ride gamers' nostalgia all the way into the top ten.

EA Sports' high-profile, heavily marketed NBA Jam and NFL Blitz remakes are noticeably absent from the board. These two franchises lined Midway's pockets with quarters in the 1990s, but neither series has been able to grab hold of modern gamers' wallets.

With each passing year, the arcade sports genre sees fewer releases. Sales charts like the one listed above -- as well as the following one below -- seem to validate publishers' concerns that traditional arcade sports games have become a losing bet.


Top Xbox Indie Games (based on full versions purchased)
  1. CastleMiner Z
  2. CastleMiner
  3. Total Miner: Forge
  4. Avatar Deathmatch
  5. FortressCraft Chapter 1
  6. Murder Miners
  7. The Impossible Game
  8. Avatar Laser Wars 2
  9. The $1 Zombie Game
  10. Avatar Paintball
  11. Avatar Legends
  12. Fortress Wars
  13. Miner Of Duty
  14. Miner4Ever
  15. Avatar Laser Wars
  16. End Of Days: Infected vs Mercs
  17. Toy Stunt Bike 2
  18. Flight Adventure 2
  19. Don’t Die Dateless, Dummy!
  20. Block World
Not one Indie sports game managed to make this year's top twenty sellers. Fun titles like Fitba, Blockey, College Lacrosse 2012, Qoccer, Downtown Smash Dodgeball and Avatar Football have gone largely unnoticed, with each game likely selling no more than a few hundred copies.

Even the highest-selling Indie sports game on Xbox.com, Avatar Golf, has just 10,000 total user ratings. Since it's possible to rate Xbox 360 games without actually purchasing them, Avatar Golf's true sales numbers could be much lower.

Triple-A sports titles put on another strong showing in 2012, but for all the mid-budget, low-budget and no-budget developers, 2012 was disheartening.

At this point, game publishers probably feel like releasing a traditional sports title that doesn't have the luxury of 10 to 20 years of buyer conditioning is akin to betting $1 million that Vanderbilt University's football team will win next year's BCS title.

This generation, gamers have shown little interest in sports titles aside from the recurring items on their annual sports gaming expense list.
Comments
# 1 mestevo @ Jan 25
FIFA 11 servers weren't shutdown until January of 2013, no?
 
# 2 ANDROMADA 1 @ Jan 27
I'm surprised just dance isnt on the list.
 
jyoung
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