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The MMOG market continued off the back of MUD’s and MUSHes as early as 1991, when Neverwinter Nights launched on AOL (Anon, 2001). As most MUD’s were fantasy-based, this is perhaps why fantasy has remained the most popular MMOG genre today (mmogchart.com). Early MMOG’s, like The Realm launched in late 1996 and Ultima Online launched in 1998.
It is perhaps Ultima Online that first achieved “massive” figures however, and was the first MMOG to achieve 1m subscriptions in December 1999 (mmogchart.com). At its peak The Realm Online only managed to achieve 25,000. It is difficult to define what constitutes ‘massive’ however and 25,000 could be viewed as large enough for a community. Today however the majority of MMOG’s achieve well over 1m (monthly) subscribers, with World of Warcraft achieving over 6.5m in July 2006 (mmogchart.com). 25,000 therefore seem too relatively small for inclusion, but demonstrates the massive increase in MMOG popularity between 1997 and today.
Despite being around for so long this market has been highly under represented in the mass media until of late. The niche appeal of early MMOGs like Neverwinter Nights, hourly pricing structure and relatively low adoption of the Internet (particularly broadband) were specific barriers for their adoption by the mass population, until recently. In mid 2005 the broadband market exceeded that of a dial up connection (Mintel, 2005). This is significant for MMOGs, which demands a high speed connection, like broadband, for fluid game play. Increased broadband adoption means more people are able to play MMOGs. Not only this but broadband speed itself has increased to up to 24MB (Mintel, 2005). The evolution of broadband has allowed for higher resolution game play and more functionality to be added (Duchaneaut, 2006).
Confusion in measuring success
The fact that Mintel is using data from MMOG Chart supports this early lack of representation. The data from the site was derived from internet based research by one person (Bruce Woodcock from MMOGChart.com), rather than using empirical data from Mintel’s usual market based study conducted by a large company.
Games that ‘warrant’ inclusion by MMOG Chart are those where the game player pays a monthly subscription to play (Mintel, 2005). However there is conflict here as there are games like Second Life and Runescape in the list where you do not need to pay a subscription to play. Habbo users can buy into Habbo Club to maximise their experience; access to more clothing options, rooms and priority access. This is essentially a non-optional subscription, like that in Second life, but is not listed as an MMOG....
