[Ranking Analysis] 'Paul Guys', which became the trend this summer, under the TOP 10 chin

* Diablo 2 rankings are compiled by combining Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: Resurrection.

Paul Guys' momentum is not serious. On June 21st, he switched basic play for free and the rankings began to rise, and he climbed to #12 in three weeks. The hidden masterpiece, which has been popular among gamers, is about to rise as a national game that will represent the summer of 2022, both in name and reality.

This week, Paul Guys recorded a significant rise in the PC room rankings while maintaining high search volume and the number of individual broadcast viewers. As new users become easier to enter after free conversion, the cycle continues, with existing users attracting friends and new users attracting new friends again. In fact, Paul Guys is more fun to play with friends, and it's a better game to play together offline than voice chat, so it's perfect to show off your firepower in a PC room.

The biggest factor in the Paul Guys craze is free-to-play, but cross-play, which can be enjoyed on both console and PC, and more active collaboration events under Epic Games also had an impact. This is the hidden driving force behind the record of 20 million players in 2 days of free conversion and 50 million players in 2 weeks.

Paul Guys' cruising had a major impact on the parent company and service company, Epic Games, and its platform, the Epic Games Store. Although the Epic Games store has achieved some success as a competitor to Steam, it is also true that there is not enough room to say 'this is it' other than the periodic provision of free games. Although Fortnite played a significant role abroad, it did not achieve much in Korea. Meanwhile, as Paul Guys is emerging as a domestic trend, favorable responses to the Epic Games store are also increasing. In fact, in the Internet community, it is easy to find an opinion that 'I have only created an Epic Games store account, but thanks to Paul Guys, I am able to access it every day'. It remains to be seen whether Paul Guys can become a popular long-running game.

Lost Arc with meteorologist buff, enters 2nd place

Another protagonist this week is Lost Ark. Lost Ark gathered a lot of attention by launching a new job 'Meteorologist' on the 6th. Meteorologist, as the name suggests, is a profession that manipulates the weather, and is characterized by a cute appearance with a special weapon umbrella and tail. The emergence of another individualistic profession following the drawing artist provided a new vitality to Lost Ark, and as a result, it returned to second place after League of Legends.

In fact, according to Smilegate's announcement on the 12th, all indicators recorded an upward trend, including a 424% increase in new users and a 392% increase in returning users after the update of Meteorologist. In addition, Lost Ark is expected to accelerate the upward trend by introducing a variety of new content, including a new corps commander raid, during the summer update season.

In the mid-range, Diablo Immortal, which has been trending downward recently, seems to have begun to solidify. Diablo Immortal has been on a downward trend for three consecutive weeks since placing 8th in the second week of June, but recently successfully broke the break with the start of Season 2 of the Battle Pass. As of the 13th, it is maintaining a not low ranking as the 9th in Google's sales ranking, so it seems to be stabilizing within the top 20 for the time being.

In the lower ranks, Wonshin, who started to heat up the atmosphere ahead of the 2.8 update on the 13th, recorded an upward trend. 'midsummer! Fantastic night? This update, which is under the theme of ‘Meteorological Song!’, has amplified expectations through various marketing before. Other than that, Final Fantasy XIV, Path of Exile, Mabinogi, and Heroes of the Storm recorded a downward trend.

Game Mecca's online game popularity ranking is compiled based on overall 'game awareness' and 'game access traffic' by combining the votes of portal search volume, PC room game access, game broadcast viewers, and game mecca users.