Elden Ring doesn't come close to being the most-played game of the year

techradar.com:

For all its popularity, Elden Ring isn’t close to being the most-played game of the year and is unlikely to clinch the title by the time 2022 wraps up.

That’s according to Mat Piscatella, the executive director and video game industry advisor at market research firm NPD. Elden Ring’s commercial popularity was brought into stark comparison when Piscatella shared a list of the top 10 most-played games in the US during the first quarter of this year on Twitter(opens in new tab) (thanks, GamesRadar(opens in new tab)).

The list includes several mammoth titles that have dominated the gaming industry since their release, such as Minecraft, GTA 5, and Fortnite. Alongside them are massive franchises and household names, including Call of Duty: Vanguard, Warzone, The Sims 4, and Among Us.

A couple of sports games also made it into the top 10 – NBA 2K22 and Madden NFL 22 – alongside Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As Piscatella highlights, half of the top 10 most-played games of the year so far weren’t released this decade, and Elden Ring isn’t among them.

Elden Ring is reportedly ranked 20th in the list, behind multiplayer games like World of Warcraft and Rocket League, as well as major single-player titles such as Skyrim. Piscatella’s list doesn’t include absolute figures of the game’s estimated player counts, nor does it disclose the sample size used to generate the findings. 

Elden Ring may have sold over 13 million copies, mesmerized critics, and taken the world by storm, but it’s hardly surprising that it hasn’t clinched a top spot in the most-played games list. Not only did it release as recently as February this year, but the highest-performing titles are those that are able to cement themselves in the gaming zeitgeist while