Multiplayer Online Games: Let in the Cannibals

Electronic Gaming Business, April 7, 2004

Paid subscriptions to massively multiplayer online games may be leveling off in recent months even as the market gears up for some major new releases later in the year. The latest release of Bruce Sterling Woodcock's tracking of MMOG active subscribers among the major game worlds suggests that while fantasy titles continue to be the only reliably successful genre for this platform, the segment is saturated and new subscribers to one world are coming at the expense of another.

"I think it is certainly true within North America and Europe that any new game that comes on the market is taking away a lot of subscribers from another game," says Woodcock, MMOG analyst. "The overall trend is growing, but it is very clear that it is slower. The big variable is that we don't know how many people subscribe to more than one MMOG at a time."

Final Fantasy XI has been the impressive success story of 2003, rocketing to half a million subscribers even before the North American release of the PS2 version, and finally displacing EverQuest as the MMOG king. Anecdotal evidence from retailers we queried suggest that the $99 hard drive\FFIX combo has been selling very well for the price point. This will be the first test case for an online game subscriber base being fed from both console and PC sides. Sony's console MMOG EverQuest Online Adventure has not fared as well as many expected, however, with merely a tenth the subscriber base as its famous namesake EverQuest, which itself experienced some shrinkage recently.

But along with FFIX's success we see slight pull-backs among the other major titles, including EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online. In fact, despite efforts to expand the market with other genres and play styles, fantasy role playing remains the only successful MMOG style to date.

Space Opera and sci-fi titles Eve Online, Earth and Beyond (soon to be closed), and PlanetSide are not even in the ball park of classic fantasy titles. Attempts to grow the base into female and non-core gamer audiences with The Sims Online clearly have not gained traction.

Beyond Fantasy?

Here at EGB, we continue to think that fantasy drives the genre because the demands of MMOGs best follow the classic appeals of fantasy fiction: immersion in relentless detail, length, taking on alternative identities.

These tendencies simply are not present among broader audiences. Just as pen and paper RPGs tried to leap beyond fantasy subject matter unsuccessfully in the 1980s, online MMOGs seem to have discovered that fantasy fans has a special affinity for the needs and rewards of MMOG designs.

Nevertheless, Woodcock remains optimistic that the potential remains for growing MMOGs beyond the fantasy genre. "We're seeing a natural peak, but I don't think it's a question of market size as much as product positioning," he says. "I think it's more of an indictment of MMOG designs. A lot of puzzle games like Bejeweled are very popular. If you could come up with a massively multiplayer version of something like that you might be able to get people to pay a monthly fee." In fact, as EGB reported recently (EGB, 3/24/04), a breakaway success at There.com has been the addition of card game tables that can be set up and played among the avatars. We could imagine an intriguing environment that combines RPG elements with casual game play.

Many upcoming MMOGs will continue the fantasy trend (Worlds of Warcraft, Ultima Odyssey, Middle Earth), and Woodcock expects that many of these titles could cannibalize current favorites. Some superhero titles are also poised to explore new audiences.

One recent trend in MMOGs involves sales patterns. Rather than the slow audience growth that characterized EverQuest and Asheron's Call years ago, new MMOGs have much steeper adoption curves. "They are being adopted very quickly, with tens and hundreds of thousands of people buying in the first couple of months and then you see no growth or decline." Rather than expect a game to catch on and grow organically by word of mouth, MMOGs must then rely on multiple release windows worldwide to grow their audiences.

Woodcock compiles his list from both official subscription reports, which are often sparse in this competitive and secretive sector, published quotes from company executives, and inside sources among MMOG staffs. His detailed breakdown of subscription levels is updated regularly and his methods fully annotated at http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html.

Contact: sirbruce@ix.netcom.com

MMOG Subscriber Levels
Title\Publisher                          Q3 2003    Q4 2003    Q1 2004
Final Fantasy XI\Square-Enix             280,000    450,000    500,000
Everquest\Sony                           445,000    430,000    420,000
Ragnarok Online (Japan)\Gravity Online   237,000    (237,00)   300,000
Star Wars Galaxies\LucasArts-Sony        275,000    300,000    275,000
Ultima Online\EA                         250,000    (250,00)   225,000
Dark Age of Camelot\Mythic               220,000    250,000    250,000
Sims Online\EA                           97,000*    -97,000    80,000
Asheron's Call\Microsoft                 80,000*    -80,000    -80,000
PlanetSide\Sony                          60,000     60,000     -60,000
Anarchy Online\Funcom                    40,000     40,000     -40,000
ShadowBane (North Amer.)\UbiSoft         50,000     40,000     -40,000
EverQuest Online Adventure\Sony          44,000     40,000     -40,000
Asheron's Call 2\Microsoft               50,000**   -50,000    25,000
Eve Online\CCP                           40,000     30,000     -30,000
Horizons\Artifact                        NA         32,000     35,000
WWII Online\Playnet                      12,000     12,000     12,000
Numbers in parentheses indicate the subscriber updates were not available for
this quarter and are carried over from earlier reports. *Last updated April
2003**Last Update March 2003