About MMO Populations

MMO Populations provides trusted, data‑first estimates of how many people play popular MMOs today and over time. We combine multiple public signals with a transparent methodology to produce comparable player activity metrics across games.

What we show

Players Today: 7‑day rolling enhanced daily estimate.
Enhanced 30d: the latest monthly enhanced player estimate.
Trend %: short‑term momentum (week‑over‑week), clamped to ±200%.
Activity Score: a 0–10 normalized score combining intensity and source mix.
Consistency %: stability of recent activity (lower variance = higher consistency).
Confidence %: data quality based on source presence and freshness.

How we model player estimates

Every metric on MMO Populations is produced through a multi-step pipeline that ingests public signals, normalizes them, and blends them into comparable series. We intentionally keep the final weighting proprietary, but the outline below shows how the pieces fit together.

Data ingestion: we collect high-signal telemetry such as Reddit activity volume, Steam concurrent players, and live-stream audience figures. Each source is filtered for anomalies and aligned to UTC before the downstream steps.
Normalization: raw series are scaled onto shared baselines so posts, viewers, and players contribute on comparable footing across different games.
Enhanced monthly series: our proprietary blend creates the Enhanced 30d value—an internally consistent baseline that powers global ranks, trends, and comparisons.
Daily smoothing: a rolling multi-day window (7-day by default, reflected in the app) produces the Players Todayestimate while suppressing day-of-week spikes without masking true momentum.

We routinely backtest these steps against major launches and seasonal events to make sure the series stays directionally accurate. When we ship a new model version we publish the “seam” on charts so you can see where enhancements begin.

Tier classification

Not every MMO exposes the same telemetry. To keep comparisons fair we group games into cohorts based on how their data is stitched together—unified crossplay titles, split platform giants, PC-only ecosystems, and more. Each cohort has its own calibration rules so a Steam-only indie is not ranked directly against a cross-platform blockbuster.

Curious which cohort a game lives in or how the distributions look? Explore the Tier Insights page for medians, histograms, and recent movers inside every tier. It is the best place to geek out about our classification system without diving into the raw math.

Quality safeguards

Confidence % decays as data ages or if a source temporarily disappears, letting you judge freshness at a glance.
Consistency % surfaces volatility so sudden spikes are contextualized against the prior month.
Trend clamping keeps short-term anomalies from overwhelming the week-over-week momentum number.
Outlier monitoring: flagged anomalies from community events, outages, or bot waves are reviewed before they ripple across the published scores.

These checks let us publish transparent metrics for enthusiasts while protecting the internal heuristics that make the rankings unique.

What the numbers mean (and don’t)

Figures are estimates, designed for comparisons, trends, and relative scale across games.
We do not claim precise active user counts; instead we focus on directionally correct signals and cross‑game comparability.
Confidence and freshness indicate whether today’s data is recent and robust; cautious interpretation is appropriate when confidence is low.

Data sources

We only use publicly available information and do not collect personal data. Aggregations are derived from publicly published counts and platform APIs within their terms. When a data partner changes availability we adjust our weighting but never expose private user information.

Contact

Questions or partnerships? Email hello@mmo-population.com.