Facts and Figures 2022

As Paula and I are both keen on seeing statistics of LadiesGamers, I’ve made it a little tradition to publish figures about the traffic at the site every year. This last day of 2022 is perfect for that. How well did we do? Every year, since I started the site in 2014, has seen growth. And a steep curve of growth as well. We had thought 2021 was already a very good year. Well, I can tell you that our views and number of unique visitors have once again gone up significantly. 53% more views then in 2021, and even 59% more unique visitors.

We are very close to a million views, which is amazing! And all of it is achieved purely based on our passion for video games and for a well written piece. No adverts to make your computer screen look like a flickering pinball machine, just a safe haven on the internet.

Time to take a look at the year!

Traffic at the site

In 2022, we published 551 articles. Reviews, guides, each month our view on upcoming games, articles listing the best off, gaming news and editorials. They were all there, and this year we once again added our fair share of interviews too.

The article that did best in views is one that came to life in 2022: Cities: Skylines DLC’s: Which are the Best to Buy? Like all our Cities articles, it did amazing! And even though our more personal stories ( YvoCaro Plays and Paula’s Game Ramblings) don’t rake in the same staggering amount in views, we hope they are still good reading for our returning visitors.

Like our writers, our audience is scattered all over the world. In total we had views from 223 countries, even more then last year when we had 203 countries. But the majority of them (51% of all views) are in the United States as you can see in the chart below. The chart lists the most important countries only.

Rating the Reviews

We reviewed and previewed 398 games this year (in 2021 we reviewed 431 games), so just slightly less. 231 games on Switch, 157 on Steam, 7 on another PC platform and 2 on mobile. James was our most active reviewer, doing 117 of them with Paula in a very close second place writing 107 reviews, with Mina coming in third with 53.

As we always do, we scored them in our rating system. Below, you can see how we rated them, with 49 of them being previews of demo’s and they don’t get a rating. I’m rather surprised at how many games got a Two Thumbs Up! 70 of them, given by the entire team. That’s even more then last year, which goes to show there are many awesome indie games out there!

Interviews, Giveaways and Must-Read Articles

Even though most views go to guides, reviews and the Best of..lists, we try to make the content of LadiesGamers pleasing to our audience. Especially those that are returning visitors and maybe even support us through our Patreon page. Publishing the kind of personal stories that we are known for. Like the articles we wrote about Christmas or Summer Holidays combines with games, and the series of YvoCaro Plays en Paula’s Game Ramblings. Most of the times about video games, but sometimes about happenings in our lives too.

To give more attention to indie developers we published five Ladies in Gaming Biz interviews (you can find them here) and started a new series of interviews called Inclusive Gaming. Aside from those we also published a new series for Gamers Like You and Me: the people we interviewed aren’t professionals in the world of games. They are indeed gamers like you and me, and like all people do, they have an interesting story to tell! Like Ruth and Tammy from the Facebook group Physical Game Hunters and Nadia who likes to combine gaming with Cosplay and photoshoots.

Lastly, we also hosted several giveaways, which publishers and developers kindly made possible. We did 8 Giveaways and for those of you who like to participate: it may be good to know that our Patrons in Tier 2 and 3 have an advantage when it comes to winning!

We did giveaways for Once in Flowerlake, Time Master, Zorya: the Celestial Sisters, Sockventure, Fishing Paradiso, Farm Manager 2022, The Wandering Village and Moncage.

Best Viewed Reviews

Let’s see what reviews and previews performed best in views in 2022. On Steam games often go into Early Access first, or release a rather extensive demo ahead of the full release. We get asked to preview these, and as it often is just as much work as reviewing a full game, these are included in the list as well.

These are the best viewed in 2022, with the one in top being a demo impressions for Manor Lords on Steam. And once again games aimed at a younger audience, are well viewed. Like the 3 My Universe games and the Horse Tales game. And our Cities reviews for the various DLC packs do great as well, with two reviews in the top 20.

Guides, Guides and More Guides

Though reviews are our main staple on Ladiesgamers, we have found that guides work exceptionally well in views. Writing takes a lot more time to write than a review, but it’s also very satisfying. In my opinion you can’t write a guide if you don’t really love the game you are covering. It’s not always a full walkthrough, our guides are often tips to get you started in the game. Our readers love them too, so that’s very rewarding for us.

The ones for Civilisation, of which we have an entire series, keep doing very well. But a little game that has the critics divided like Hokko Life, is in fourth place too. Here’s our top 20.

The Best of the Best

Aside from reviews and guides, we release Best Of… articles: lists of best games for a certain genre, collections of games that got high ratings. And at the end of the year, everyone in our team makes a list of games they particularly enjoyed. We hope they are helpful for people who are looking for a game like the one they know and enjoy. Of course, we only put games on these lists that we have verified as being good to play.

So, that’s it for 2022. Thank you, all of you. For finding us, reading what we put up and especially for all your kind comments along the way. We will strive to make 2023 a year that’s stellar on LadiesGamers like this one was.

Will you join us again?