October was the first full month of the fall season, and as gamers everywhere settled into their seasonal routines and chillier temperatures took over, total gameplay hours rose 4% over September. Even the fall breaks afforded to students of schools and colleges across most of the country couldn't help push total play-time up to August levels, however. Let's take a look at Raptr’s most played PC games for October 2014!
Much to the surprise of almost no one, League of Legends help onto the top spot for the seventh straight month, accounting 22.25% of play-time among the games tracked. This is a slight dip in percentage of gameplay accounted for from last month, but an overall rise of just under 3% in hours played from September. Raptr tells us that while the World Championship final rounds early in the month did not significantly impact play-time, the game did see a peak in gameplay hours during the kickoff of the Harrowing Sale, beginning on October 24th, which featured numerous bundles and flash sales, as well as the introduction of two new skins and three new icons for players to purchase.
World of Warcraft managed to solidly claim the number two spot in October, seeing its total play-time rise slightly above 16% compared to October. The game's boost is thanks in large part to The Iron Tide patch, which went live on October 15th, adding a numerous new features, character model updates and interface updates to the game. It is noteworthy that the expansion, Warlords of Draenor, launched just yesterday and should provide the game with another significant boost in gameplay hours. It seems unlikely, however, that World of Warcraft will be able to dethrone League of Legends.
DOTA2 also received a bit of a boost in October, with Raptr acknowledging that the game peaked just after the release of Patch 6.82c on October 15th. The patch most notably tweaked damage from various character attacks and adjusted cool down times, as well as addressed some other miscellaneous balance issues. Still, DOTA2 was able to boast a more than 5.5% gain in playtime over September.
The fourth and fifth spots in Raptr's list see the first changes for October, with Counter Strike: Global Offensive moving up one spot, while ArcheAge jumps two spots from its position in September, breaking into the top five. Unfortunately for Diablo III, ArcheAge's rise pushed the title down, as October saw Diablo III fall three spots to number seven, making its stint in the top five rather short-lived.
New to the list this month and coming in all the way at nearly the bottom are a pair of AAA titles, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which launched on October 14th and September 30th, respectively. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel could see a slight rise next month, considering its mid-October release. As for Shadow of Mordor, Raptr predicts that the game is likely to drop from the top 20. It is refreshing, however, to see AAA games that are less established with the PC crowd than a Diablo or Battlefield find a position on the list.
The complete Top 20 list is below, and as always, if you'd like a more detailed breakdown of this list, visit http://caas.raptr.com/.
