GotY/Gaming in 2023 Megathread

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah... haven't played much games this year. 20 hours in TOTK was my max.

[Dragon Lord]

Mine's going to be terribly boring because I don't think I touched another game unless it decides to count the Tekken 8 CNT/CBT but I barely touched the CBT. Ah, it doesn't but apparently I did play some of T7.

Games Played: 2
First Game: Genshin Impact

1. Genshin Impact (733 hours played, 14 trophies earned, 99% or rather 99.86% ratio currently)
2. Tekken 7 (1 hour played, 0 trophies, 1% ratio, or rather 0.14%)

Game Style: Thrill Seeker - spent 99% of my time on the edge of my seat! (sure...)
Favourite DualSense: White (well dang my poor Red one got overtaken, but why do I need to know this?)
Social Style: Lone Wolf

Game Time in Months for GI

January: 52 Sessions, 64 Hours Logged, 2 Trophies Earned
February: 42 Sessions, 50 Hours, 0 Trophies
March: 45 Sessions, 60 Hours
April: 53 Sessions, 58 Hours
May: 42 Sessions, 82 Hours
June: 47 Sessions, 65 Hours
July: 46 Sessions, 51 Hours + 1 Hour for Tekken 7
August: 44 Sessions, 82 Hours, 6 Trophies
September: 55 Sessions, 71 Hours
October: 39 Sessions, 56 Hours
November: 53 Sessions, 80 Hours, 6 Trophies
December: Not Finalised

Wow, I played a lot of a single game this year!

Quick, I shall try and load the rest of my December with some other games to get in on the final month! (not...?)

I really wish I could know what my true Genshin time is. I barely play on my PS5 any more and I still logged 170 hours on there. Really want to know how close I am to 1,000 hours with PC + mobile time added in. Or how much over 1,000 I went.

My Switch review:

Spoiler

First game of 2023: Fire Emblem Engage

Total games played: 2 (  ) for a total of 74 hours

Most played games : Fire Emblem Engage (38 hours), Super Mario RPG (36 hours)

Gaming trends: Role Playin - 50%, Strategy - 26%, Action - 24%

Most played month: November (36 hours)

Monthly playtime: February (17 hours), March (11 hours), April (7 hours), July (1 hour), November (36 hours)

Don't even know why I have a Switch at this point.

[Moonface]

Here's my Nintendo summary, although it isn't going to be accurate because anything that involves using an online component isn't something I play with my account but with @ShiraNoMai's because she's the one with the active Nintendo Online sub.

First Game of 2023: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Total Games Played: 2
Total Hours Played: 266
Most Played Games:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (228 hours)
   
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (38 hours)
   

Most Played Month: June - 106 hours
Monthly Playtime:

• April - 26 hours / Games played: 1 / Most played game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild / Days played: 10
  
• May - 73 hours / Games played: 2 / Most played game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (61 hours) / Days played: 19
  
• June - 106 hours / Games played: 1 / Most played game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (106 hours) / Days played: 25
  
• July - 59 hours / Games played: 1 / Most played game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (59 hours) / Days played: 16
  

I know I also played the following games but the stats aren't on my profile so I don't know the numbers:

• F-Zero 99
  
• Tetris 99
  
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder
  

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In other news about gaming in retrospect for the year, there's been a couple of articles put out about the lack of time given to developer speeches at The Game Awards that I meant to post earlier than this but kept forgetting to do it:

• The Verge | Developers are wanting more than The Game Awards are delivering
  
• IGN | The Game Awards Winner Speeches We Didn't Get to Hear
  

The IGN article is really neat because of the fact it actually offers a platform for any of the winners at the TGA's to share what they would have said had they been given the chance to do so at the event itself. For anyone curious who's speeches are in the article (since IGN didn't get a response from everyone) here's a rundown:

• Thierry Boulanger, Co-Founder & Creative Director at Sabotage Studios and Game Director on Sea of Stars, Winner of Best Indie
  
• Phil Crifo, Creative Director at Awaceb and Game Director on Tchia - Winner of Games for Impact
  
• Takayuki Nakayama, director on Street Fighter 6 - Winner of Best Fighting Game
  
• Shuhei Matsumoto, producer on Street Fighter 6 - Winner of Best Fighting Game
  
• The Resident Evil Village Development Team for Resident Evil Village VR Mode - Winner of Best VR/AR Game
  
• Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios and Game Director on Baldur's Gate 3 - Winner of Game of the Year
  

It's a shame it isn't that many who shared something given how many more games than this won an award, but I still have to give props to IGN for providing the platform and opportunity in the first place.

[Moonface]

Steam Year in Review 2023 is Live
For those who use Steam (who doesn't unless you don't play games on PC?) you can now see a review of your year on the platform: https://store.steampowered.com/yearinreview

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Here's my Steam Year in Review 2023: https://s.team/y23/mdvhkjh?l=english

Games Played: 11
New Games: 4
Achievements Unlocked: 90 (24 Rare)
Longest Play Streak: 51 days w/ 7 games played
Top Games:

1. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance
   65% of Play Time / 342 Sessions Played / 6 Achievements Unlocked
   
2. Dead by Daylight
   17% of Play Time / 39 Sessions Played / 7 Achievements Unlocked
   
3. BallisticNG
   6% of Play Time / 13 Sessions Played / 15 Achievements Unlocked
   
4. Phasmophobia
   5% of Play Time / 15 Sessions Played / 10 Achievements Unlocked
   
5. Half Life 2
   4% of Play Time / 8 Sessions Played / 23 Achievements Unlocked
   

[Dragon Lord]

Games Played: 9
Achievements Unlocked: 164
Longest Streak: 11 Days
Play Time: Elden Ring (46%, 54 Sessions), Dark Souls II (11%, 9 Sessions), Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 2: Sisters Generation (10%, 5 Sessions)

How I compare to the rest of Steam:

Achievements: 164 vs 16 median
Games played: 9 vs 4 median
Longest streak: 11 vs 5 median
New Releases: 20% vs 9% median

Kinds of games I played the most:

1. Souls-like
2. JRPG
3. Dark Fantasy
4. Anime
5. Horror
6. Online Co-Op

1 Games Gifted
1 Badges Earned

Closer look at top played games:

Elden Ring (46% of total playtime, 54 Sessions, 5 Day streak, unlocked 100% achievements with 38 unlocked this year)
Dark Souls II (13% total playtime, 9 sessions, 8 day streak, 100% achievements unlocked with 38 unlocked this year)
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation (10% playtime, 5 sessions, 2 day streak, unlocked 100% achievements unlocked with 19 unlocked this year)
Octopath Traveler (9% playtime, 12 sessions, 3 day streak, 23 achievements unlocked this year)
Dark Souls Remastered (8% playt8ime, 13 sessions, 2 day streak, unlocked 100% achievements with 41 unlocked this year)

Playtime by month:

January: 1% playtime (100% in Phasmophobia)
February: 10% (100% in Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation)
March: <1% (100% in Phasmophobia)
April: 9% (89% in Octopath Traveler, 11% in Phasmophobia)
May: 0%
June: <1% (no game listed)
July: 2% (68% in Dark Souls Remastered, 32% in Octopath Traveler)
August: 19% (44% in Elden Ring, 34% in Dark Souls Remastered, 14% in Phasmophobia, 8% in Sea of Stars)
September: 14% (97% in Elden Ring, 3% in Sea of Stars)
October: 11% (100% in Elden Ring)
November: 15% (86% in Elden Ring, 9% in Dark Souls II, 4% in Phasmophobia, 1% in Octopath Traveler)
December: 17% (65% in Dark Souls II, 34% in Chrono Trigger, 1% in Elden Ring + Monster Hunter Rise)

93% of playtime was with a controller (8 games, 93 Sessions). Games with most time spent using controller: Elden Ring (49%), Dark Souls II (14%), Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 (10%), Octopath Traveler (10%), Dark Souls Remastered (8%)

Longest Daily Streak: 11 Days (Saturday, November 25th - Wednesday, December 6th). Games played during streak: Dark Souls II, Octopath Traveler, Elden Ring

[queenzelda]

[Moonface]

I just realized that Steam doesn't give any breakdown for playtime that tells you the actual number of hours played, and instead just gives percentages. A shame since I'd be really curious to see how long I and others actually spent playing games.

Also dang @queenzelda, I think you might have spent the most hours on any platform out of anyone here playing games this year, at least when it comes to roundups that provide hour counts. What were your hours of playtime on PlayStation?
I also wasn't aware Xbox were providing roundups for their players too, as I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere that it had gone live. Looking at yours queen, I'm curious if you were just trying out Minecraft or have played a lot of it in previous years but just didn't feel like playing much of it this year?

[Moonface]

GamesIndustry.biz presents... The Year In Numbers 2023
I never knew this was a thing they did before now, so whether you're in the same boat as me or did know this has been a thing and were waiting for this years edition, GamesIndustry.biz have put together a series of infographics breaking down 2023 in gaming by the numbers. The data compiled breaks down the following:

• The global games market value (courtesy of Newzoo)
  
• Total boxed vs digital revenues (also via Newzoo)
  
• The biggest mobile games, publishers and countries, both by revenue and downloads (thank you, Sensor Tower)
  
• The best-selling games in the UK (from GfK), US (from Circana) and Japan (from Famitsu)
  
• The most covered games and companies, in terms of number of articles (provided by ICO via Footprints, based on data from over 18,000 websites)
  
• The biggest influencers on YouTube, most watched trailers and game promo videos, and the most popular video games on TikTok (courtesy of Fancensus)
  

You can see the full breakdown here: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindus...umber-2023

[queenzelda]

Also dang @queenzelda, I think you might have spent the most hours on any platform out of anyone here playing games this year, at least when it comes to roundups that provide hour counts. What were your hours of playtime on PlayStation?

I also wasn't aware Xbox were providing roundups for their players too, as I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere that it had gone live. Looking at yours queen, I'm curious if you were just trying out Minecraft or have played a lot of it in previous years but just didn't feel like playing much of it this year?

Playtime on my PlayStation; I played 128 hours on my PlayStation 5.

Yea, they do: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/2023recap

I actually used to play Minecraft back in 2021 and I would play with my husband and a bunch of others on a server hosted by a streamer I was watching at the time. We played a lot on that server, until it needed to be updated cause basically his server was so bad the closer you got to his base the laggier it got. He had way too much automation going on there. Eventually he stopped playing after a while and after someone beat the end dragon, he was just done playing the game by 2022 or so. Give or take.

I just play the version I have on my Switch though I do have both Java/Bedrock I tend to play Bedrock a lot. I just like to build my boat and explore all of the world. I'm hoping to discover another woodland mansion. My husband and I came upon one in my world I had hosted for a while, and we discovered a huge wool grey cat made by the people living there and my husband learned to teleport it WHOLE to our base. 🤦‍♀️ The hosted world I had is long gone now, but I still remember our finding that place. It was a lot of fun. I just like to look at the world inside of Minecraft in peaceful mode and just mindlessly float along. :3

[Dragon Lord]

at least when it comes to roundups that provide hour counts. 

This is why I wish Hoyo would have a roundup for time played on the Genshin and Honkai Star Rail clients. I really want to know what my hours logged on Genshin were this year. They do a yearly recap for the anniversary, which is September - September, but they don't do one for the year itself. I'm sure I easily hit at least 1,000 hours total on Genshin this year, and I'd bet a good 300-500 hours on Star Rail.

It'd be interesting to know how much time I spent playing Azur Lane, Arknights and Aether Gazer too. I'm sure at least 70% of my gaming time this year went to my gachas. KEKW

[Mr EliteL]

I probably won't bother looking at my Switch one, barely touched it at all. Including Octopath II, OK did get some hours in but just stopped playing purely for the lack caring about switching over to my Switch or even turning it on to play. I mean to but just don't do it. Boo hoo...and I'm about to get another game added to my backlog for the console, yay.

I'd also like to see a better wrap-up for Genshin that includes playtime and for the calendar year, not version year. Then I can really see how huge my playtime is by combining my three servers (two accounts, one using two servers). I could just roughly use my PSN one and times it by 3 but would be good to see a more accurate individual total time, as I could've played more on one server over the other two.

[Moonface]

I'd also like to see a better wrap-up for Genshin that includes playtime and for the calendar year, not version year. Then I can really see how huge my playtime is by combining my three servers (two accounts, one using two servers). I could just roughly use my PSN one and times it by 3 but would be good to see a more accurate individual total time, as I could've played more on one server over the other two.

I was curious if there was any way of tracking it but seems the best you can get is to see how many days you logged in using Account Info.
I'm not sure if this would work but maybe if you add the game to Steam where it can be unofficially launched from your Steam library maybe that would track your playtime? I don't know if Steam logs hours for games that aren't actually through Steam if they're launched through Steam though.

[Mr EliteL]

Hm. I'll give it a go. Darn, when I do that it says "Failed to start process for this game", probably because Genshin opens it's own launcher and Steam can't connect to that separate program. Ah well.

[Moonface]

Ah, I didn't realise the game has its own launcher.
I do wonder why Genshin doesn't have a time played stat available to players yet though, since I saw someone three years ago asked what their play time was via a customer service ticket and they were given an exact time down to the seconds by the person who replied. I guess if you were desperate you could ask that way for your playtime.

I just play the version I have on my Switch though I do have both Java/Bedrock I tend to play Bedrock a lot. I just like to build my boat and explore all of the world. I'm hoping to discover another woodland mansion. My husband and I came upon one in my world I had hosted for a while, and we discovered a huge wool grey cat made by the people living there and my husband learned to teleport it WHOLE to our base. 🤦‍♀️ The hosted world I had is long gone now, but I still remember our finding that place. It was a lot of fun. I just like to look at the world inside of Minecraft in peaceful mode and just mindlessly float along. :3

Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought all console versions of Minecraft were the Bedrock version, while Java is exclusive to PC. If you do have the game on PC (the Java version in particular as I don't think this exists for Bedrock) I'd recommend looking into OptiFine, as it makes the game run significantly better.

[Moonface]

Best of Steam 2023
Steam have shared their Best of 2023 lists, which look back at the year's top sellers, most-played games, top new releases, and more: Steam | Best of 2023

A rundown of each category can be found at the bottom of the page, as well as links to previous years for anyone curious how 2023 compares to those ones.

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I'm surprised Sons of the Forest was in the Platinum category, only because I didn't think it would be that big of a game to generate enough sales to get into that ranking as a Top Seller. I assume it doesn't include micro-transactions for that category but if it does I still wouldn't have expected that game to make Platinum rank. Definitely the most surprising game to see in the top rankings across a lot of the categories for me.