According to the latest stats of Xfire, online PC gaming tool, there wasn't much networked computer gaming going on during October. Because while August and September are traditionally slow months (though still both showed well over 15% growth this year), October dropped 2% in total hours of play from last year. Given that Halo 3 was released around the end of September, Xfire thinks that Master Chief might be the culprit for the low month..though we blame the popularity of new Mt. Dew flavors. So how is November shaping up so far?

November is showing a daily tally of 10% over last month, largely fueled by the current number one played game on the service, Call of Duty 4.

For those interested, here are the aggregated hours by month on the service:

August 2006: 618,587
September 2006: 546,601
October 2006: 598,441

August 2007: 775,368
September 2007: 648,715
October 2007: 585,260

So uhh...would anyone mind playing some Team Fortress 2 when they're done with all this Halo madness? It's tough to find matches on LIVE. Thanks.

Xfire: Online hours continue to fall [gamesindustry]