MMO
4
PLAYER
Sections
Close
Still Running
Where the Money Moved
Leaking Outward
Rules and Regulators
How It Got Here
All 30 pieces
Still Running
Where the Money Moved
Leaking Outward
Rules and Regulators
How It Got Here
All Pieces
Everything, in one list
Thirty pieces, five sections, and the figure each one is built on
Still Running — and How You Can Tell
8 pieces
1.1
Steam's Concurrent-Player Chart Is Public — Here Is What It Does and Does Not Prove
1.2
Blizzard Stopped Publishing Subscriber Counts in 2015. The Token Price Kept Talking.
1.3
Thirty Million Registered Accounts, One Subscription Fee, One Rebuild That Made It Possible
1.4
The 2007 Backup Is Now Larger Than the Game It Was Forked From
1.5
EVE Online's Peak Concurrent User Record Has Been Public Since 2013. The Trend Since Is Also Public.
1.6
Throne and Liberty Had One Fortnight on the Charts. What Happened After Is the Usual Story.
1.7
Ashes of Creation Has Been Announced Since 2016. A Timeline of What Intrepid Studios Has Said and When.
1.8
New World Lost 98% of Its Steam Players, Then Amazon Relaunched It. The Chart Shows Both Moments.
Where the Money Moved
7 pieces
2.1
Lineage M Has Out-Earned Most of the Games the Western Market Talks About. The Filings Show It.
2.2
Korea's Three Biggest MMO Companies File Quarterly. Here Is What the Numbers Have Said Since 2020.
2.3
Three Business Models, Two Survivors on Subscriptions, and the Numbers Behind the Switch
2.4
Legal Currency Bridges: What the WoW Token and FFXIV's Chronoscroll Actually Do
2.5
Newzoo and Sensor Tower Are Cited Everywhere. Who Pays for the Full Reports?
2.6
The Sector's Layoffs Since 2023: A Dated Record of Named Studios and Public Announcements
2.7
Every Shutdown Notice Is a Dated Document. Here Are the Ones That Matter to This Genre.
The Genre Leaking Outward
5 pieces
3.1
Destiny 2 and Warframe Run Every MMO System. They Have Never Used the Word.
3.2
Genshin Impact Made More Than Most MMOs in 2023. Sensor Tower Has the Receipts.
3.3
Fortnite's Persistent World Is Not an Accident. Epic's Own Roadmaps Said So.
3.4
Roblox Has More Concurrent Users Than Every Western MMO Combined. Its Own Filings Say So.
3.5
When the Server Holds Forty People, What Does 'Massively Multiplayer' Still Mean?
Rules and Regulators
5 pieces
4.1
The Belgian Gaming Commission Ruled in 2018. Five Years On, the Industry Is Still Arguing About It.
4.2
China's Anti-Addiction Rules: 2007, 2019, 2021, and the 2023 Draft Spending Limits
4.3
The Netherlands Followed Belgium. The Kansspelautoriteit's 2018 Finding and What It Required.
4.4
The UK Said Loot Boxes Were Not Gambling and Then Said They Were a Problem. Both Statements Are on the Record.
4.5
Real-Money Trading Is Banned in the Terms of Service. That Is Not the Same as Being Illegal.
How It Got Here
5 pieces
5.1
From Essex, 1978 to Azeroth, 2004: The Twenty-Six Years That Built the Genre's Template
5.2
Corrupted Blood Spread Across Azeroth in September 2005 and Epidemiologists Wrote Papers About It
5.3
The NGE Launched on 15 November 2005. Star Wars Galaxies Never Recovered.
5.4
Square Enix Shut Down Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, Apologised in a Full-Page Newspaper Ad, and Rebuilt It
5.5
The Battle of B-R5RB Destroyed $300,000 Worth of Virtual Ships. CCP Published the Bill.