Second Life Drops from Nielsen's Top 10 Most Played PC Games, Sees Significant Drop in Average Minutes Played

Second Life has dropped from the latest Top 10 PC Game* chart compiled by Nielsen, based on data the venerable ratings service gathers from application activity in 180,000+ US homes. The latest ratings are from January 2012, and as you see, SL fell from the top ten, where it resided in December 2011. Look:

Though SL wasn't listed in the top 10, Nielsen's Bradley Raczka very coolly shared its ranking for this time period, which I've added to the chart: "Ranked 17th based on the total minutes played total," he e-mailed me. "Share was 1.019. Average minutes per week: 240."

See Decemer 2011's chart below, for comparison:

Average minutes played in December was 369, so it's a drop from around 6 hours a week of play to roughly 4. At the same time, average usage for World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online significantly increased, so I don't think you can attribute SL's drop in usage to the December holidays. At the same time, SL's total market share increased from .744 to 1.019, so it's possible more people are playing SL overall (at least in the US), but spending less time playing. In the same time frame, it's worth noting, World of Warcraft dropped about one share point, suggesting less people are playing WoW, but those who are, are playing more.

*Pre-emptive reply to Dwight Scrhute-esque "But Second Life is NOT a game" complaint: Yes, Second Life is not a traditional game by some definitions, but then, neither is The Sims 3 (also on Nielsen's list) and as a PC client that's primarily used for 3D graphics-driven, avatar-based entertainment and game-like interactivity, from Nielsen's perspective this is most appropriate category to put it in.

Tweet

Comments

[Not Missing My Time]

Cant say that I've been missing my time in SL. I've been healed, and no longer am a junkie.

[Vooper Werribee]

...BUT Second Life is not a... dang! now I'll have to find some other post to troll :(

[shockwave yareach]

And the sims close, and the people quit, and more sims close, and more people quit...

A year back we warned of this. People had hope with Rod. Now that he's backtracked on the lastname issue, he's shown that nothing in SL will change -- it will continue circling the drain. So folks are finally giving up.

Overpriced, buggy, we don't own it anymore and regulated to death by people potty trained at knifepoint. Why should anyone want to join SL and replace the long-suffering fanatics who shed a few tears and give up on this dream?

[Seven Overdrive]

Second Life is only relevant to an ever shrinking small core audience of die hard users. It is a severely outdated and expensive platform that only gets further left behind with each passing year. Yes you can play for free, but the true fun is being able to own your own sim so you can truly create your own world.

They are also being left behind by the ever increasing popularity of mobile platforms. Most people are busy and always on the go and not shut in at home so it is no surprise user hours are shrinking.

LL really needs to consider a completely new version of their once cutting edge product before someone else beats them to the punch.

[Ramesh Ramloll]

Well this kind of forces you to readjust the opinion expressed in your previous post supporting an ex-linden's claim that 'oh people are staying in spite of everything'.

[Rusalka Writer]

LL is working hard to make the best SL 2008-9 they possibly can, and it's working well. The problem is that it isn't SL 2012. I lost a lot of interest when the mesh implementation was bled of most of the magical possibility it had for improving the look of SL. Land impact of mesh is too high, mesh vehicles are impossible with the scripting burden, and mesh clothing is waiting for third-party outsourced development to work.

Meanwhile, the price of land is still huge and the look of SL is the same year after year after year. My avi is about to turn five and she still has the wrong feet on the wrong legs. LL is rightly concerned about breaking legacy content, but folks are fleeing to more beautiful alternatives.

[foneco zuzu]

Seing that list and knowing that less then 7pct of Second Life users are USA citizens, i can only feel that Second Life still has a bright future!

[Cyberserenity]

Great let it drop. I have a feeling SL may be the nice and friendly place it once where. A place to meet artists, tech nuts, grown ups and filosofers once again.

[Ajax Manatiso]

Whats with this Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Looked for it in Google-- no luck. Went to Big Fish Games website -- still no luck. Is this the largest secret online game ever? Why are they so secretive and how did they become a top ten game with such secrecy?

[foneco zuzu]

Cyberserenity, I wish it would be like that, but there are already Virtual Worlds where that sense of community still prevails (So many smaller grids keep that spririt, be the non ptoift ones like OSGrid or Commercial grids like Inworldz, Avination, Gay nation and more, much more).
T

[foneco zuzu]

And there is a myth that needs do be utterly refused!
That mainstream is the best!
It is not and even if our egos would love to blog to millions, we are only and will always be and for My part i don't bother and I'm proud to be part of the smaller niche that already gave so much, not only to internet!
I just wish the company that runs it All, should be much more proud of its regular user base!

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I confidently expect Second Life's figures to increase next time. At that level of use such fluctuations amongst a small subset of just one of Second Life's user countries can be regarded as among the fluff.

[Planter Leitner]

This post is a bit dated now, but just in case anyone comes back to look or finds it new: I've started a thread in the SL forums on how maybe at least the roleplay sim owners should band together to recruit new people to SL, since the Lindens seems to have abandoned that approach. If any sim owners are interested, the thread is at http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Role-Play/Banding-together-to-recruit-roleplayers/td-p/1530943

[Kadah Coba]

I'm even more late to this, but I wouldn't trust Nielsen's numbers. I'm guessing they sample the computer activity of a relatively small sample of "gamers". My own data puts the average minutes per SL AVATAR, not user, between 500 and nearly 1000 depending on the viewer. >_>

[rim sim games]

has some one played motu and patlu games?