Editor’s Note: [a]list daily is happy to introduce a new regular feature from social media trends tracker Starcount, looking at top games by month based on online buzz.  For information on their methodology, refer to the description and link at the end of the article.

Stay tuned for our weekly feature on Top Games on console, PC, mobile and social.

by Starcount

As we get to the end of November, thoughts turn to Christmas lists and stocking fillers. Video games remain an incredibly popular gift and, with sales of the Xbox One and Playstation 4 sure to soar into December, we examine which games have been the most popular on social media going into the Christmas season.

10. Batman: Arkham City
In at number ten for a second consecutive month, Bruce Wayne continues to be the world’s favorite comic book crusader, gaining close to three million YouTube views in the last month.

9. WWE 2K13
The world’s most popular wrestling game remains at number 9 this month, gaining an impressive 44,000 new fans on Facebook. It is also the highest ranked fighting game in the absence of any beat-em-ups, suggesting gamers like their fighting with a dose of realism!

8. FIFA
Despite being added to more Google+ circles than any other game in the top 10 with 113,000, FIFA dropped three places down to eighth this month as driving replaced football as the main sport to be enjoyed virtually.

7. Grand Theft Auto
The controversial GTA continues to be the most discussed video game on Facebook – over half a million people were still talking about it online in November, and dedicated YouTube channels are receiving millions of views featuring ‘How to…’ videos in the GTA universe.

6. Assassin’s Creed 4
The biggest drop in position this week befell Assassin’s Creed 4, falling five places to sixth! The game did manage to gain over 47,000 new Twitter followers, but perhaps gamers are starting to finish the game following last month’s excitement.

5. Need for Speed: Rivals
Last month may have been dominated by football, but this month belongs to cars. Receiving nearly 20 million views on YouTube, the return of Ferrari to the series for the first time in 11 years has clearly sparked the intrigue in gamers worldwide.

4. Battlefield 4
Retaining fourth spot, Battlefield lost ground to its main rival Call of Duty – COD gained eight million more than Battlefield’s 20 million views this month. The more realistic Battlefield did gain over 53,000 new Twitter followers – with only COD again beating it into second.

3. Gran Turismo 5
The second driving game to crash into the charts just before the Christmas rush, the return of Gran Turismo is one of the most exciting events in the gaming calendar this year, and the addition of online racing with this addition won the series over 1.5 million new Facebook fans.

2. Pro Evolution Soccer
Just when it seemed that FIFA had definitively won the footballing crown, Pro Evo experienced something of a resurgence in November – 1.7 million new Facebook likes put the series a long way ahead of FIFA’s 40,000 this month.

1. Call of Duty: Ghosts
For years Call of Duty has proven time and again to be the most popular game on the planet, and so far Ghosts has shown it is no exception. 13 million Facebook likes and over 100,000 new Twitter followers shows that gamers cannot get enough of the game, and with COD experts sharing their experiences online the series also clocked up more than 28 million YouTube views this week. Call of Duty remains the undisputed champion of the video game world, and it is going to take a special effort to knock it from its perch as we enter the festive period.

For methodology, Starcount uses 12 global networks including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Chinese networks Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, analyzing the behavior of 1.5 billion users. The firm has a unique algorithm that creates a “Starscore” for each game, which it then uses to rank the most popular games on social media in a given period of time. 

For more information, check out how Starcount tallies their “Starscore.”  {link no longer active}