Xfire hits 8 million users

By Games Industry.biz Published 10 September, 2007

Ow!

Community and data collection tool, Xfire, has now passed the 8 million subscriber mark, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

What's more, the latest information on the top 20 most-played titles indicates that World of Warcraft's popularity is holding steady - despite eight months having now passed since The Burning Crusade expansion's release.

Over 60 per cent of Xfire users are based in Europe, with around 40 per cent in North America, and the company has logged over 120,000 man-years of data since launch, with multiplayer games outperforming traditional offline games by a long way.

According to the details based on activity across the month of August, taken almost entirely from PC game-playing data, World of Warcraft logged over 440,000 hours of gameplay on average per day.

This was followed by Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer and Counter-Strike: Source, on 173,355 and 158,714 average hours respectively.

The second most popular MMO was Guild Wars, logging 59,199 average hours per day, while Eve Online was sixth most popular MMO, and Lord of the Rings Online came 8th.

Interestingly, both of those last two titles were outperformed in Xfire user data by Asian games Silkroad Online and MapleStory, and Korean free-to-play titles occupied five of the MMO top ten.

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne was the most popular strategy game, with 41,242 hours per day, and Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction was top of the miscellaneous category with 12,502 hours.

In comparison, traditional offline games were much lower down on the list. Oblivion and Football Manager 2007, although much older titles now, were still among the highest non-multiplayer performers, yet notched up fewer than 10,000 users between them.

GamesIndustry.biz provides daily news and analysis of the games industry. But then you knew that.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • zuljin #1 4 years ago

    "with multiplayer games outperforming traditional offline games by a long way."

    Why on earth would you have Xfire running when you're playing an offline game?

    @Bionick
    Whatever you win, I wanna piece cuz I've not touched it either.

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    I use a PC daily and play games on it but I've never heard of Xfire! LOL

  • Dizzy #3 4 years ago

    WTF would wow players have XFire?

  • Xerx3s #4 4 years ago

    Yeah but how many of those are active accounts? I mean, second life boasts something like 6 million but only a fraction of that has proven to be active.

    Lies, damned lies and statistics.

  • Katsumoto #5 4 years ago

    Why on earth... offline games
    WTF would Wow players...

    So you can chat to people who aren't playing. All my friends have x-fire, and it means I can continue to talk to them whilst playing a game without having to alt-tab out to read their messages or have a laptop next to me!

    However, most of us have recently moved onto the new Steam Community, as it appears to be more promising and in-game chat appears to work even in quite a few unsupported games

  • Dizzy #6 4 years ago

    >So you can chat to people who aren't playing

    Teamspeak?

  • lambtron #7 4 years ago

    Who uses XFire? Who! And more importantly, why?

    Seriously.

  • Katsumoto #8 4 years ago

    You use teamspeak instead of an IM client? It's hardly as convenient really is it? and lambtron... read the above explanation.

    I don't understand what the big deal is... it's just an instant messenger program, the same as msn/googletalk etc etc, except you can carry on your conversations whilst playing a game.

    edit for dizzy: bear in mind, i'm talking about friends who don't necessarily play the games i'm talking about. Your suggestion teamspeak would work if the only people I talked to were my clan/guild mates on WoW or CS, but I'm talking about friends from work, university etc who I just want to chat to whilst playing any other game.
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 12:35

  • Freelancepolice #9 4 years ago

    xfire is ace, the enemy territory stat tracking as superb. I'm using steam community as well but until they provide decent stats it won't replace xfire

  • LeD #10 4 years ago

    You PC people make me sick

  • Whizzo #11 4 years ago

    Xfire is a handy tool, good for linking up with friends on servers, IMing people who are in a MP game while you're not and the time logging is quite a nice feature too.

    Steam community will probably end up replacing it for a lot of people though, while GFWL dies a death.

  • Katsumoto #12 4 years ago

    LeD - care to elaborate? Or perhaps, lacking the greater patience and intellect required for most PC titles, you are at a loss for words? ;) (j/k)
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 12:46

  • Dizzy #13 4 years ago

    >You use teamspeak instead of an IM client?

    You use a keyboard while playing for chatting with friends ? Would really mess up my kill/death ratios :)
    Edited by 2 at 10/09/07 @ 12:50

  • Katsumoto #14 4 years ago

    Heh, well, you have a point there - it's not much use in a frantic game of CS:S except for between rounds, but in most other games its fine.

  • cheese001 #15 4 years ago

    @ Xerx3s : Xfire only tracks you when you use it so they would all be live accounts.

  • zuljin #16 4 years ago

    @Katsumoto
    Well I know that, I just hate having random apps in the background. Also I just don't see the use of talking to friends whilst I'm in a single player game. Guess I'm just a crap multitasker.

    @cheese001
    Point still remains, if you have to sign in with a username, how many of the 8mill are actually in use?

  • mallocks #17 4 years ago

    From the top of the Xfire webpage:


    8,076,745 Registered Users
    Current Users Online: 151,321

    I should think it doubles or so when more people are online, and perhaps doubles again at weekends but that's still less than 10% of the registered base. I think it's a dubious thing to boast about at any rate.

  • Red-Moose #18 4 years ago

    Are we talking of real Gold Xfire users or just Silver?

  • Walshicus #19 4 years ago

    What the fuck is Xfire?

  • Xerx3s #20 4 years ago

    You PC people make me sick

    The feeling is mutual.

  • Xerx3s #21 4 years ago

    Whizzo: GFWL is so much more than just that. It also includes stuff like testing and such. The end user side of stuff is only a small portion. Why else would all those companies switch.
    I very much doubt that it will die a certain death, it offers things to publishers that steam can't.

  • Whizzo #22 4 years ago

    You're forgetting the most important fact: Live costs money.

    Oh and of course doesn't work outside of the two games that support it.
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 15:33

  • Xerx3s #23 4 years ago

    Xfire only tracks you when you use it so they would all be live accounts.

    But surely you have to make an account. Therefor it would be easy to claim x amount of users. It's the same thing ms does with xbl.

  • Xerx3s #24 4 years ago

    You're forgetting the most important fact: Live costs money.

    On the pc it doesn't.
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 15:34

  • Whizzo #25 4 years ago

    Er yes it does.

  • Xerx3s #26 4 years ago

    You also confuse Games for Windows with live. Games for Windows is just a platform, GfW live is the online part and is just as free. Only cross platform requires a gold account.

  • Xerx3s #27 4 years ago

    Er yes it does.

    Er no, it doesn't.

  • Whizzo #28 4 years ago

    So Gold is now free on the PC?

    Er no. The differences are here and I say again, it only works in two games, both of which you have to be in or Live for Windows is not running.

    It's a complete waste of time.
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 15:39

  • Xerx3s #29 4 years ago

    You don't have to use gold to play online on the pc and you still confuse live with games for windows. Games for windows is essentially the ground live is build on.

    Again: GfW live SILVER features online play for free. That wiki page has some very obvious mistakes in it so there is very little credibility there.

  • ruckus #30 4 years ago

    Why do all the others talk about 'hours' but the offline stats talk of 'users'?

    Anyways - the stats seem to be saying that offline players don't use our tool as much as online players do - surprise, surprise.

  • ave #31 4 years ago

    8m subscribers with 120,000 man years of played time = only over 100hours of total game time played ever, each.

  • JavaJawaUK #32 4 years ago

    Whatever people say, I love Xfire.

  • Ryuken #33 4 years ago

    "That wiki page has some very obvious mistakes in it so there is very little credibility there."

    It's still the truth: yes, Silver offers free online play but with less features than comparable free matchmaking services on the PC. About the only unique thing is cross-platform play and that's 1.) overrated and 2.) Gold only.

    Live has been made accessible to XP users as well a few months ago so hopefully MS continues this trend of fixing stupid mistakes. Live is still far from being competitive on the PC if you ask me.
    Edited by 1 at 10/09/07 @ 17:43

  • cheese001 #34 4 years ago

    @ Xerx3s and zuljin. I though the point was the number of WOW users which xfire will only track active accounts. Not the number of xfire users.

  • BastoJ #35 4 years ago

    Xfire is great, chat in game, stat tracking etc...

  • FunkyRenegade #36 4 years ago

    @Whizzo
    Don't trust wiki.
    IT TELLS LIES!

  • Whizzo #37 4 years ago

    Except in the case of the linked part of the article it's 100% correct.

    Pay for matchmaking with friends? MS can fuck right off.

  • Ryze #38 4 years ago

    I have a busy life - no time for World of Warcrack.

    Just say no.

  • Dizzy #39 4 years ago

    >So Gold is now free on the PC?

    Always been free m8.

  • FaceOmeter #40 4 years ago

    @LeD: so you're not using a PC to make that comment on this PC-created website, then? actually from the length of your comment you could well be on a console, I take it back

  • Whizzo #41 4 years ago

    Always been free m8.

    Perhaps you should inform Microsoft they appear to want some money. It's only "free" if you already have a paid for Gold account with your 360, which obviously PC only gamers will not have.
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/07 @ 11:01