TOP 5 POPULAR GAMES TO DATE!

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Games... Oh, those games... According to Newzoo’s Data Explorer, more than 3 billion people play video games. Just think about this figure. The population of our planet exceeds 7 billion people, and almost half of them don't mind killing a couple of hours in DOTA 2, CS: go, or spending the only day off to play a new single game.

Why go far: I play games, my little sister plays games, my little brother seems to live only by video games, my parents play games, even my grandma played games and beat the platinum in every single possible farm simulator.

Video games have long ceased to be the cherished, forbidden fruit, which they were 10-20 years ago. Video games are now commonplace, and everyday entertainment that almost every second inhabitant of our planet can afford (as the statistics openly tell us).

Naturally, the higher the demand (and we have already realized that it is high), the higher the supply!

That's why video games market is growing day by day and if we believe the forecasts, by 2023 the value of the global video games market will exceed $200 billion.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of new video games leave the developer studios, but despite such a great choice, something always stays the same!

In some games people are ready to play for years, others hype and cause interest only on release, while others are instantly forgotten by everyone.

However, let's try to find out what games are the most popular among players at the end of 2022 and try to understand the reasons for their popularity!

1) Of course, the golden palm in our fictional ceremony goes to Counter Strike: Global Offensive as expected.

Counter Strike: Global Offensive is the most popular game on Steam in September 2022, because multiplayer shooter managed to collect an impressive 653 thousand concurrent players per week, which is much more than the competitors Dota 2, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Apex Legends.

2) DOTA 2. It’s the main competitor and for a long time, the out-of-the-box king among online games!

Is there any point in telling you what DOTA 2 is?

I think not! This is a true pop-culture phenomenon that has forever changed the video game industry! This is a gaming giant and a true media franchise with millions of dollars in merchandise revenue, and its own animated series on Netflix.

On October 27, 2022, the number of players staying simultaneously in Dota 2 reached the 926,756 mark. This is Dota 2's best online count since May, 2019. Despite its well-deserved old-timer status, Dota 2 is still one of the most sought-after and beloved games among gamers!

3) PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is an online battle royale game from PUBG Corporation studio. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds game was released in March, 2017. By the end of the year, it had peaked over two million players, making it one of the most popular games in the world. It is now in third place in the rankings.

4) Apex Legends.

This is a mix of multiplayer first-person shooter and royal combat. The game was developed by Respawn Entertainment studio. This is suitable for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch platforms. Apex Legends updated its online record on Steam on August 9, 2022, with 511,000 players playing Battle Royale simultaneously. The previous record was 412,000.

5) Rounding out our November/December video game top is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, a recently released computer game in the first-person shooter genre developed by Infinity Ward. On October 20, 2022 the story campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II became available for those who made a pre-order.The next day the maximum number of online shooters in Steam was 94,655 people. Now it is in the top 5 most popular games, and it is not surprising, because there was a lot of noise around the game! There are commercials for the game at the UFC tournament and a YouTube video with a whole cast of stars of the first magnitude.

It got to the point that even I, a man who hasn't played Call of Duty series since about Black Ops, was extremely interested in Modern Warfare II.

So finding the game in this top is more than deserved!

At the same time we can't help but highlight a few games that didn't make it to the top, but also managed to make quite a splash after (before and during) its release!

While it's still a little early to talk about the just-released God of War: Ragnarök (although there's no doubt about it, we just need to give it some more time after release), Lost Ark and ELDEN RING certainly deserve a mention in this paragraph! Both games garnered not only good press, but also impressive online/sales figures, though failed to maintain them over the long haul.

Lost Ark was a surprise mega hit in the West.

Success came from a place you never expected!

Action-MMORPG, which was released in Korea and Russia back in 2019, only in 2022 has reached the U.S. and EU countries. As it turned out, Western players managed to get so much bored with this kind of games that the first week the title managed to climb to the second line on the maximum online on Steam.

Immediately after the release, the game had 4.7 million registered users, 55% of them came from the U.S., 45% in Europe. On Twitch, the number of hours of viewing Lost Ark reached an impressive 60 million, 1.2 million concurrent viewers and 112 thousand streams.

ELDEN RING. The new soulslike masterpiece from Hidetaka Miyazaki has already managed to earn over $116 million, selling more than 16.6 million copies. In the first 60 days since the release Elden Ring, the game's videos collected a total of 3.4 billion views. By comparison, GTA V barely reached 1.9 billion at launch in 2013 and Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018 reached 1.4 billion.

Without a doubt one of the best games of 2022, and a top favorite for GOTY 2022 (along with the new GoW) just couldn't help but be in this article.

As we can see, most of today's popular games are true industry flagships that haven't let up over the years, continuing to stay relevant and in demand.

However, how do you extend the life cycle of your game in today's market? What helps them retain online to this day?

Previously, we have already talked about how to keep the attention of players and increase LTV through various activities (more about this here). Now just a quick walk through the key features of popular games now.

The main features of top games:

1. Online: If a game has an online mode or at least the ability to play together, it will help a lot with word of mouth and streamers. In a world that was recently plagued by pandemic and now instability and fear for tomorrow, people are actively looking for ways to take refuge from the problems around them online, and there's nothing wrong with that!

2. UGC: The ability to create mods or UGC content increases greatly the discussion of the game. This is any content that has been created, published and/or submitted by an audience of a brand. UGC includes any user activity: reviews, comments, reviews, photos, and even videos.

3. Adding new features after release: with a clear vision for the project, the game itself does not have to be completely ready before launch. The most important thing is to add new content that can not only retain existing players, but also attract new players.

4. Role-playing elements or the ability to tell your own stories: most of all, this increases interest in multiplayer games by streamers. However, it is equally important for the players themselves to get the opportunity to play different roles and find new ways to interact with the game world.

5. Re-playability: This includes all the elements that encourage users to run the game again and again. This can be procedural generation of levels, multiple modes, or other features, any seasonal rewards or upgrades that encourage people to log in to the game.

These five key factors are the first thing anyone who wants their game to be a potential hit needs to pay attention to. Also, you will need a well-built promotional campaign, involving influencer marketing, as the most important key to move your game from “hopeful” status to “world hit” status. Want to know how to do that with the least amount of losses? Then come here!