2024 in Review – Numbers, Insights and Reflections
Traffic Sources: Search: 64 % | Direct: 22% | Social: 10% | Referral: 3%
Website Stats
In 2024, The Mane Quest was visited by about 162’000 people, resulting in 260’000 page views. That’s the most active it’s been since 2021, after the site’s traffic exploded in 2020!
In its total lifetime since Fall 2018, the website has had about 891’000 unique visitors and 1’600’000 page views
Between 11’000 and 19’000 people visited The Mane Quest every month in 2024. June, September, October and November were the most active months this year.
The biggest traffic spike this year was on November 22nd with 2.5k page views thanks to the article about The Mane Quest on Polygon and GameFile. There were a few similarly busy days thanks to the announcement of Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori on May 7th, the Game Announcement Roundup on June 7th and my viral Twitter Post on September 22nd.
I published 34 articles this year, which is the most I’ve managed since 2019! While their length and complexity varies, I am in fact very proud of this.
This year, 39.5% of TMQ’s traffic came from the USA. The UK is number two with about 9% of total traffic, followed by Germany, Canada and Australia making up around 4-6% each. My native Switzerland follows at rank 18 with about 0.95% of the site’s visits.
I still haven’t figured out how to get the same data out of the new Google Analytics interface than I used to, but from what I can tell, the gender demographics of TMQ visitors remain very close to evenly spread, and the 18-24 age group is the biggest.
The TMQ-Communities are growing! Our Discord Server remains my most active hangout and the place I go to for valuable discussion, but it’s also our smallest branch just short of 1500 members. The /r/GamesWithHorses subreddit has grown a lot this year and just cracked 3000 subscribers. And the Horses & Video Games Facebook group has become more impressive than ever at 30’000 members! Big thanks as always to my loyal mod friends, Kalma, Agent and Cutty, for helping me keep our (usually lovely) communities in line. 💖
Top 10 Articles in 2024, by page views
Best Horse Games 2022 (44k)
Ghost of Tsushima Review (16k)
Fernhoof Grove Announcement (5.8k)
Windstorm 2 Review (4,2k)
Best Horse Games 2025 (4,1k)
Top 10 Articles of all time, by page views
Best Horse Games 2022 (165k)
Best Horse Games 2019 (136k)
Windstorm 2 Review (24k)
Ghost of Tsushima Review (21k)
8 Common Horse Mistakes (21k)
Top 10 Search Keywords in 2024 (clicks, impressions)
ghost of tsushima horse (3.5k Cl., 25k Imp)
horse games (3k Cl., 103k Imp.)
the mane quest (1.5k Cl., 2.7k Imp.)
rdr2 horse tricks (1.5 Cl., 5k Imp.)
sims 4 horse ranch (1.4k Cl., 38k Imp)
best horse games (1,3k Cl., 10k Imp.)
horse games pc (1.1k Cl., 10.9k Imp.)
very far away horse (0.8k Cl., 5.8k Imp.)
fernhoof grove (0.8k Cl., 2.5k Imp.)
tales of rein ravine (0.6k Cl., 35k Imp.)
Top 10 Referral Traffic Sources in 2024
Facebook
Reddit
Twitter
Yandex.ru
Polygon.com
Search.Brave.com
Instagram
Wasted.de
Youtube
Highlights
I love that I was able to dedicate more time to The Mane Quest this year, which has paid off in significantly more activity than recent years. Even beyond quantity, there were a lot of cool achievements for me and the site this year, which I want to highlight:
I gave a talk about horse games at Devcom in Cologne! While I’ve had one or the other Speaking engagement at game developer events before, this was the first time I was able to focus on The Mane Quest and its findings at a conference of such size and prestige. The talk was attended by over 60 people, which was wonderful! That the talk is now available for everyone on YouTube means I’ll be linking back to that one a lot in the future!
The rest of my time in Cologne for Gamescom was absolutely stellar as well. I got to try out Rival Stars in VR and had more relevant horse game discussions than I would have thought possible even as I booked the trip a few months earlier. I can’t wait to talk more about the (several!) wonderful unannounced horse game projects I heard about, once they’re ready!
I managed to have a Tweet about Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori go utterly viral, reaching a staggering 15 Million views and almost 140 Thousand likes. I could have done without the barrage of bigoted harassment I received after making a joke about adding more pronouns to the game, but if anything, the “anti-woke” outrage (and resulting mockery of said outrage) only further expanded the post’s reach. The impact on the game’s visibility and wishlist numbers has been profound, and incredibly validating and motivating.
I was interviewed for GameFile and Polygon by renowned games journalist Stephen Totilo, which was really exciting and got a lot of eyes on TMQ and my work.
I was invited to the brand new You Are Error podcast by also very renowned games journalist Nathan Greyson, which was a very fun conversation… including, but not exclusively about digital horse testicles!
I’m quite proud of my Adding Horses to Your Game article, though it hasn’t quite reached the people it needs to reach yet and I’d love to promote it a bit more widely outside my existing audience.
Reflection
Looking back at my last couple of yearly reviews, every one of them has contained some measure of “holy shit what a year”, with some mix of awe and exhaustion. This one is… well, certainly a bit of a “what a year” once more, and yet completely different. Things have been exciting and new on my end, but I am heading into 2025 with a vastly improved outlook compared to a year ago.
My 2023 review reads like a bummer, frankly. Which is not surprising once you know what I wasn’t ready to put into words in public back at the time: I spent several months on sick leave due to burnout and depression in late 2023 and early 2024. Following a healthy amount of introspection and therapy, I eventually decided to quit my job as Creative Producer at Aesir Interactive in Spring. I realized that while many of the job’s contents (like developing the core concept of Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori) gave me joy, the overall circumstances were decidedly not healthy for me. The following months have been spent on recovery and finding out what which aspects of my professional life I really wanted to pursue, as well as making my way to the next big adventure in my career: becoming a freelance horse game consultant.
I can’t call that endeavor a complete success just yet – building up a freelance business takes time, even if you’ve been laying the groundwork already like I have – but things are looking really good for this point in time, and considering where I’m at in terms of recovery.
Staying at Aesir Interactive in a much reduced fashion as a consultant has allowed me to keep myself involved in Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori while focusing on the things that I’m really good at and have fun with, meaning horse animation feedback, writing promotional material and producing social media content, rather than project management.
In Summer 2024, I also stepped down again from the SGDA presidency I accepted a year earlier, because to the surprise of probably no one, another (unpaid!) job with its own massive challenges was actually the last thing I needed in the above situation. I remain a member of the board though, which allows me more control over how much time I really want to invest.
My lease horse Ollero and myself at a gymkhana with costumes this Summer
In 2025, I am looking forward to pursuing more new consulting work, on announced and unannounced horse games. I will probably have some additional capacity, so if you need a horse expert on your game project, definitely do reach out!
In addition, I plan on doing some part-time marketing work for local Swiss indie studios, which might not be horse-related but is a wonderful opportunity to actually work with people I like face to face. I’ll also be helping Aesir run their kickstarter campaign for Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori in the coming weeks and months – to stay posted on that, make sure to click the “notify me on launch” button on their pre-campaign page, if you haven’t already!
In summary: I am doing a lot better now, and I think the increased activity on The Mane Quest is a testament to it. I love this site, I love writing about horse games, and I am deeply grateful to have more time and energy for it once again. It’s been an incredibly rewarding and motivating year for TMQ business, despite the uncertainty it started out with.
I am excited to see what the future holds and can’t wait to share all of it with you, my dearest readers and community members 💖. Here’s to a new one. 🥂
The year is coming to a close, and TMQ regulars know what that means: it’s time to dive into statistics, look back at highlights and share some reflections on the past, present and future. Let’s look at the numbers, achievements and highlights.