Thousands of new games are released every year, but only a few chosen ones continue to stand the test of time, thanks to their die-hard fans!
To determine which games are still the most talked about decades after their release, the team at PlayOJO gathered information on the top 20 games based on average players, monthly Twitch viewership, positive and negative tweets, and more!
What are the most played games?
Table 1: The Most Played Games Worldwide
| # | Game | Developer | Average Players (July 2022) |
| 1 | CS:GO | Valve Corporation | 607,528 |
| 2 | Dota 2 | Valve Corporation | 454,199 |
| 3 | Overwatch | Blizzard Entertainment | 292,316 |
| 4 | PUBG | KRAFTON | 177,018 |
| 5 | Hearthstone | Blizzard Entertainment | 133,851 |
Unsurprisingly, CS:GO and Dota 2, developed by Valve Corporation (Steam) top the ranking of most played games despite their release a decade ago.
Interestingly, the top 3 games also host regular eSports competitions which must play an important role in maintaining both the player and fan base. For example, Dota 2 still brings over 63K monthly twitch viewers to the platform compared to 16K for PUBG.
Which games do the fans love the most?
You’d agree that if fans can’t stop playing or talking about a game, it’s a good indicator that they still love it. With that in mind, the study looked at the most viewed games on Twitch, bearing in mind they had to be released before 2017.
Table 2: The Most Loved Video Games
| # | Game | Developer | Release Year | Current Price (in £) | Monthly Twitch Viewers |
| 1 | GTA V | Rockstar Games | 2013 | £34.99 | 166,648 |
| 2 | League of Legends | Riot Games | 2009 | FTP* | 160,955 |
| 3 | Minecraft | Mojang Studios | 2011 | £24.99 | 84,363 |
| 4 | Dota 2 | Valve | 2013 | FTP | 63,024 |
| 5 | CS:GO | Valve | 2012 | FTP | 57,097 |
| 6 | Fortnite | Epic Games | 2017 | FTP | 53,470 |
| 7 | Hearthstone | Blizzard Entertainment | 2014 | FTP | 21,288 |
| 8 | Rust | Facepunch Studios Ltd | 2013 | £34.99 | 18,454 |
| 9 | PUBG: Battlegrounds | KRAFTON | 2016 | FTP | 16,430 |
| 10 | Rocket League | Psyonix | 2015 | FTP | 9,377 |
* note: FTP stands for Free to Play
Again, no surprise there. Due to both GTA Online and Five M (modded roleplay), Grand Theft Auto V grabs the top spot as the most loved game of all time. Released in 2013, and whilst everyone is waiting for the next installment, many continue to play the game and stream their experience on Twitch. No wonder it has over 166,648 monthly views.
LoL and Minecraft completes the top 3 with 160K and 84K respectively. These figures are impressive when compared to those of Fortnite (53K), the battle royale sensation that took the internet by storm in 2017. Skyrim and TF2 scored last with under 1000 monthly views.
At the end of the day, it’s a Love-Hate relationship
When players spend over 3000 hours on a game, they’ll hate it as much as they love it. Unsurprisingly, Fortnite is the most talked about game on Twitter this year with over 5000 mentions. However, only 57.54% of the tweets were positive, meaning not everybody is supportive of the battle royale game.
Released in 2008, Roblox received the most negative tweets this year with 54.34% out of 1331 in total not being very nice towards the game. On the other hand, Skyrim saw nearly 80% of its tweets being positive, proving the long-lasting love of gamers for the undying RPG.