This week in State of the Game we'll be covering the middle of January. This week is the first full week outside of the holiday period and the stats are a dramatic improvement on previous weeks. Average play time in this week's releases doubled and the average number of players is almost an order of magnitude above what it was before. The numbers are still a far cry from when an AAA title drops but they're still a significant improvement over the last month or so.
Keen observers will note that High Profits, which ranks highest in average players, doesn't take out the top spot for most played game. This is because the infographic tracks total hours played and Pit People, has been available for a little longer than its release date would otherwise imply. Pit People has been in closed beta for some time but it went to Early Access on January 13th, hence its appearance here. The advantage it gets because of this isn't too great however as Pit People loses its top spot in more than a few regions.
DiRT Showdown, the 2012 installment in the franchise, makes a roaring comeback thanks to a free key giveaway. This is in a similar vein to GRID which, before its recent removal from Steam, managed a 22x increase in average players with a similar giveaway. Of course giving away free keys doesn't guarantee this level of success as DISC JAM's comparatively small 4x increase can attest to. All things considered though, a bump like that isn't too bad at all.
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse appears for the second time in the top 5 trending section with thanks to the Overwhelmingly Positive Bundle which let it be had for as little as $1.
With the stats beginning to ramp up it's likely the next few weeks worth of stats will start to tell some interesting stories.
