Top 5 Game Time 2010
| Grepolis | 309 |
| Civilization 5 | 214 |
| League of Legends | 171 |
| Football Manager 2010 | 111 |
| UnAngband | 104 |
I was expecting League of legends to dominate somewhat, but was a little surprised to see Civ5 eclipse it with some solid hours out of the gate. Grepolis also surprised to take the top spot, although reminiscing back to the clan play it was a pretty intense, special time. Football manager put in another good show, and adding on to last year's score, it would have been up in the 270 hour range (although so would have Civ 4).
Grepolis: I played a LOT of web based MMOs this year, but Grepolis still remains the standout in play as well as the only one I actually put money toward ($15 for 300 hours is still a pretty good deal though). The placement of ~20 people on the same starting island gives an immediate competitive perspective, even though you can't atttack each other. Later you can indirectly attack or work together through use/abuse of the NPC villiages, then opens up to inactive player farming once the protection comes off, then builds to a competitive game with others in your region. There are certainly other elements that might need improving, but it seemed to be a new generation of web-based MMOs. I recently looked at wild west on Facebook by the same developers, but they, too, seemed to fall into the recruit-a-friend trap of facebook games. The last shining light for a decent facebook game might be Sid Meier himself and Civilization, but there's been so many disappointments this year with attempts to make a proper game work on facebook I'm more hopeful than confident.
My game habit is back up to around 40 hours a week after a couple of years down at ~30 hrs while the Teaching Degree took its piece of the time pie. The LANs have been consistent, but we are really need a solid LAN game. If the LoL server restarts weren't on Tuesday I'm sure it would have fit the bill perfectly.
