I don't know what "slaughtered" means in this context. But I can say that, based on two criteria: 1)posting frequency on the game-specific forums and 2) numbers of new mods and major revisions released in the past year, SH3 appears to have at least as much support, from players and from mod developers, as either of the other two titles. I actually did some analysis a few months ago, just out of curiosity, and that was my result. I was especially surprised by the extent of modding activity for an 8 year old title. I'm not sure that either of these metrics is a valid proxy for game popularity or activity, but they are at least suggestive (though I myself can think of counter-arguments for each).
I'd love to see an objective and believable survey of numbers of gamers playing each title and number of hours played per week. But I don't know how such a poll could be taken without excessive electioneering and ballot-box stuffing by dedicated fans of each title.
Perhaps this is somewhat OT and perhaps somewhat out of place in a game-specific forum, but I'd like to hear anyone's ideas for alternative ways to measure or estimate relative interest.
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