raptr

Skyrim beats out Modern Warfare 3 as most-played game

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was nearly universally beloved by reviewers, and it appears gamers had a similar affinity for the title.

The average gamer played Skyrim for 23 hours in its first week on store shelves and averaged three hours of playtime per sitting, making it the most-played game this year, according to data complied by gaming network Raptr. The game was also the most-played role-playing game this year, beating out Dragon Age 2 with six times more playtime.

Raptr tracks user activity on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Users can find out what their friends are up to on those platforms and chat with them through the service. Raptr also includes Facebook and Twitter integration, as well as support for several instant-messaging platforms.

Skyrim's achievement is quite impressive if one considers that it only launched last month. However, unlike many of the top games this year, Skyrim is designed to keep people engaged for an inordinate amount of time. Completing the main storyline can take dozens of hours, and the sheer number of side-quests allows users to play the game indefinitely.… Read more

Gaming social network Raptr hits 6 million users

More and more people are sharing their video game progress with others on Raptr, the company touts.

The social platform for gamers said today that it has hit 6 million registered users since its founding in 2007. Each month, it's adding about 750,000 new users. An infographic on Raptr's site claims it has about 5.5 million unique visitors every month and by the looks of things, its traffic is growing at a sizable rate.

Raptr tracks user activity on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Armed with that data, users can find out what their … Read more

Dennis Fong's Raptr is innovative gamer social community

SAN FRANCISCO--Dennis Fong is someone who has a lot of street cred in the world of video games. A former world champion in games like Quake and Doom, he's also the founder of XFire, a company that enabled easy instant messaging among gamers that he later sold to Viacom for oodles of money.

Now, he's got a new start-up, known as Raptr, and it seems to have some very influential people rather excited.

I got my first introduction to Raptr Friday at the Startup Showcase at the Game Developers Conference. The session, which was organized by Charles River Ventures' Susan Wu, put five entrepreneurs on the spot to give short presentations about their company. Wu and several industry experts then got the chance to weigh in on each presentation.

Essentially, Raptr is a social network for gamers, but one filled with useful applications--at least for those for whom hard-core gaming is a way of life.

But since there are millions and millions of people like that, the company has an instant and wide market.

… Read more