About Multiplayer Atlas

How rankings work

Rankings are recalculated on a schedule, not on every page view. Each game gets five scores between 0 and 1:

• Votes: player votes from the last 30 days, as a share of the most-voted game in the same list. This is the biggest factor.
• Quality: a Bayesian-weighted community rating. A game's own average only dominates after it has about 10 ratings; until then it is pulled toward the site-wide average, so one or two perfect scores can't top the charts.
• Popularity: unique visitors, page views, clicks through to the game, favorites and follows over the last 30 days, on a logarithmic scale so the biggest games don't drown out everyone else.
• Engagement: recent ratings and reviews (used by Trending).
• Momentum: growth over the last 7 days compared with the 7 days before, plus a fading bonus for new releases and major updates.

Overall score = 50% votes + 25% quality + 15% popularity + 10% momentum. Trending uses 55% momentum. Top Voted is pure votes for the current calendar month and resets on the 1st; past months are archived.

Hybrid rankings. The Overall ranking compares every game. Category rankings (MMO, Mobile, Browser, PBBG and more) normalise scores within that category, so a niche browser game competes with its peers rather than with the biggest MMOs.

Paid placements never affect rankings. The ranking engine does not read any sponsorship or advertising data, and clicks on sponsored placements are excluded from popularity.

Game health

Every game page shows whether the game looks alive, from four signals: how recently the developer posted an update or started a season, how many members are playing (from their diaries and libraries), whether interest is growing or shrinking compared with the month before, and whether the official website responds.

Labels run Thriving, Active, Quiet and Declining. Games marked closed by their developer show Shut down, and a game whose website keeps failing with no recent activity shows Possibly closed until staff check it. Health is informational and never affects rankings.

Sponsored placements

Developers can pay to have a game shown in a few clearly labelled spots: under the homepage banner, at the top of category and search pages, and beside other games’ pages. Every paid spot says “Sponsored” (or similar) and sits apart from the organic lists.

• Sponsorship never changes rankings, Top Voted, Game of the Month, reviews or ratings.
• Visits and play clicks that come through a sponsored spot are left out of every ranking signal.
• Sponsored giveaways are labelled the same way.

Voting

Anyone can vote for a game once every 12 hours; no account needed. Game owners can place a vote button on their site (every game page links to its buttons) and may reward players for voting through a signed callback.

To keep votes honest, each vote passes an automatic bot check and is scored for risk: repeat voting, automation, unusual bursts and similar signals. Suspicious votes are held for review and don’t count. Buying votes or using bots can get a game removed from the rankings.

What you're reading

• Game facts (platforms, pricing, features, release dates) are structured data maintained by editors and verified developers.
• Ratings and reviews come from signed-in members. Every rating is stored individually; averages are calculated from them, never entered by hand.
• Editorial content is written by people and labelled as editorial.
• AI-generated summaries are always labelled, are generated only from the structured facts, and are reviewed by an editor before they appear.
• Sponsored placements are always labelled "Sponsored".