Is WoW -really- the most popular MMORPG?

[Deadite]

#1 it's like you didn't even read what you posted, the number 1 says it had a breaking record for the game at 3m concurrent players, the the next one at number 2 had 2m concurrent players. Neither one of them surpassed wow even put together they aren't there lol.

Yeah i will let you find out what concurrent players means then we can talk. lol...

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Yeh you said Runescape has 200million registered users but currently has 79,377 playing and 48,619 playing OSRS.

Registered users means nothing LOL, even more so for old Free to Play games.

The 400 million players for Dungeon Fighter were just from China and there is no way i know to find out how many people play it over there. So i can't really argue with you. Since we don't know how may people play WoW now the point is moot really. I could claim 400k people play wow and you can't disprove it.

[Kolvarg]

Yeah i am sure with 400 million registered users less than 5 or 6 million people play the game. . As i said i knew the folk on this forum would instantly dismiss those games out of hand.

From your source (Wrote in April 2015, so not necessarily accurate):

"This list is not 100% representative of the most ACTIVELY played games today"

#1 Dungeon Fighter Online - "The game has achieved over 3 million concurrent users during its peak in August 24, 2012 in China alone according to data released by Nexon."

#2 Fantasy Westward Journey - " The game boasted an incredible 2.71 million concurrent users on August 5, 2012"

Don't think Blizzard ever revealed concurrent player numbers, but you're comparing F2P games that "once" had 3 million concurrent users, to a Sub-based game that "once" had 12.5 million active users.

Those games are dismissed because the data on them reveals nothing when it comes to how their "popularity" compares to WoW.

Not to mention they're fairly different from what one thinks upon the word "MMORPG", especially DFO.

From my understanding, even if you were able to prove there are other MMORPGs with more active users than WoW, you can't really know how many people like but don't actively play said game. More sales/active users/registered users do not imply more popularity.

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The 400 million players for Dungeon Fighter were just from China and there is no way i know to find out how many people play it over there. So i can't really argue with you. Since we don't know how may people play WoW now the point is moot really. I could claim 400k people play wow and you can't disprove it.

The big diference is we have no data whatsover on monthly active players on these other games, as far as I know. Do you?

With WoW, however, we have years of data on the number of subscriptions, and other indicators (activity data, for instance) that makes the current number to have a very reasonably chance from being anywhere from 5m to 8m or so.

But if such likelyhood means nothing to you, why are you even trying to push something even more uncertain? (Number of active users based from total registered users)

[Deleted]

Been plenty of graphs toyed around with concurrent players and sh*t.

Ain't gonna bother to hand you the data when you can google it or Find it here.

So nothing official just theories ok

[Azelas]

from the subscription model, Final Fantasy XIV is coming up and up and up. And it's not a surprise, the game is fantastic. It's probably the last full-on subscription MMO now that wow has a way to sub without paying cash (in-game gold)

[Deleted]

the issue is your quoting out of date articles, but then other things in the very same article saying is out of date...

I didn't quote anything

Somebody said WoD had 10 million and assumed Legion does too, I posted an article where they're saying Legion is at 10 million which nobody can confirm nor deny only speculate. For all we know Legion has 10 million or 5 million

[Deadite]

With WoW, however, we have years of data on the number of subscriptions, and other indicators (activity data, for instance) that makes the current number to have a very reasonably chance from being anywhere from 5m to 8m or so.

But if such likelyhood means nothing to you, why are you even trying to push something even more uncertain? (Number of active users based from total registered users)

Not trying to push anything and as i already stated i know of no way to check how may people are actively play a mmo in china. The same as you can reasonably assume how many people play wow with nothing to back it up. I just think that a game with hundreds of millions of registered users probably is more popular than a game with a few million players. Guess neither of us can prove each others assertions.

[Zoldor]

I wonder what WoWs accounts created is, not active, but overall created accounts might be something similar to the registered users data. Still not a level playing field. With WoW being sub based the only accurate measure for it would be another sub based game and the obvious answer is, none compare.

F2P is s totally different world of users, most those games can be played on very limited PC power, by anyone, the Asian market is a totally different gaming style with the arcades/PC Bangs they have where some people may only show up and play a game once, but create an account. It is really difficult to compare the Asian market to any other world market. When the African world catches up monetarily, with major industrialization attempting to move there, I think it will mirror the Asian market for gaming. Anyways, that is a lot of speculation and economics and marketing/gaming model talk, which again is mostly theory.

To the popularity of WoW, there is no major league title in the MMO market that compares on popularity. Take the eSports of WoW for example, find another MMO with any sort of realm of eSport on that level ever. Or even the popularity of the World First Race, yeah, we play it down, but those guys make a living off streaming and the popularity of their World First teams. Find another MMO capable of that.

Why the popularity? WoW was at the right time, built upon a well established triple A franchise of lore, but, and this is a big part, it came from a loose Lore and a game type that never brought you into the lives that personally until War 3 and even then just a few characters. So building a personal world and lore out of that was easier. You take the overall story and build down. Unlike say a Skyrim, a Star Wars, or for sake of fun Mass Effect. The timing was great, MMO existed, but never had the building blocks of a previous franchise to exploit, outside poorly made Star Trek, they took the best of what was around put the Blizzard twist on it and the market was ripe for the style and explosion. We get WoW and the rest is history. It is going to be hard to ever top WoW hence why the triple A market isn't jumping into MMOs hand over fist anymore.

[Kolvarg]

Not trying to push anything and as i already stated i know of no way to check how may people are actively play a mmo in china. The same as you can reasonably assume how many people play wow with nothing to back it up. I just think that a game with hundreds of millions of registered users probably is more popular than a game with a few million players. Guess neither of us can prove each others assertions.

If you completly ignore that F2P games obviously have much higher number of registered users (especially in the east where botting is even more prevalent), and that total of accounts created is completly unreliable and irrelevant to even guess the ammount of either active or concurrent users, then sure, neither of us can prove each others assertions.

The big difference is that if you don't ignore those things, my assertion is much more likely to be true.

I can't even find the official report from Nexon on DFO's total number of accounts, only "copy paste" reports that don't link to it.

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I wonder what WoWs accounts created is, not active, but overall created accounts might be something similar to the registered users data. Still not a level playing field. With WoW being sub based the only accurate measure for it would be another sub based game and the obvious answer is, none compare.

It was over 100M created accounts (including trials) in December 2013.
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...0922506769.jpg

[Deadite]

If you completly ignore that F2P games obviously have much higher number of registered users (especially in the east where botting is even more prevalent), and that total of accounts created is completly unreliable and irrelevant to even guess the ammount of either active or concurrent users, then sure, neither of us can prove each others assertions.

The big difference is that if you don't ignore those things, my assertion is much more likely to be true.

I can't even find the official report from Nexon on DFO's total number of accounts, only "copy paste" reports that don't link to it.

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It was over 100M created accounts (including trials) in December 2013.
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...0922506769.jpg

Ah so when it comes to wow trial accounts that anyone can make count but registered users are bullshit. If you look here it seems that Dungeon Fighter made more than wow last year by quite a bit. That would seem to indicate that is is just a tad popular still? Could it be *gasp* even more popular than wow? No doubt it is just a few whales spending so much and no one is really playing it?

[Zoldor]

Ah so when it comes to wow trial accounts that anyone can make count but registered users are bullshit. If you look here it seems that Dungeon Fighter made more than wow last year by quite a bit. That would seem to indicate that is is just a tad popular still? Could it be *gasp* even more popular than wow? No doubt it is just a few whales spending so much and no one is really playing it?

He didn't crunch the numbers he just linked what is probably the only source of this number and it included trials. Poster even stated it included trials, not that it was some definitive evidence of anything. He answered a question I posed with the relevant available data. Calm down there salty McSalterson.

Again, you can't compare the money models in F2P and sub based. It just isn't the same metric. F2P lives on tiny multi transactions made everyday. Compared to a sub base with a few offerings of other transactions. Not even the same realm. Even that article you linked says what 2 million concurrent players. Not to hate on Dungeon Fighter, but really you are comparing two totally different things. Also, for a list of most profitable MMOs they have a pretty loose term for MMO, as Hearthstone is on that list. I'm under the impression we are discussing MMORPGs. Because if we just mean MMO then the obvious answer is going to be LoL and DOTA, CS:Go etc. That article is also revenue and not profit, which is an interesting metric as well to use for a list.

Even still there is no real way to compare popularity in the sense that OP wants. If overall online gaming popularity is the metric WoW isn't the winner. If it is MMORPG then probably wow especially in a sub based model. Is popularity about the entire Globe or just one region playing it? The issue with this entire debate is no one is defining the parameters of the competition/comparison. It is all from the hip discussion.

[Kolvarg]

Ah so when it comes to wow trial accounts that anyone can make count but registered users are bullshit. If you look here it seems that Dungeon Fighter made more than wow last year by quite a bit. That would seem to indicate that is is just a tad popular still? Could it be *gasp* even more popular than wow? No doubt it is just a few whales spending so much and no one is really playing it?

It is bullshit. Where have I ussed trial accounts to try to prove anything or suppport any guess? Unlike you, I've only ever actually used the subscription numbers and trends, that we have direct access to from data published officially by Blizzard.

Making more money does not mean it's more popular or better in any way.

And again, another article without any real sources. By a website that considers League of Legends an MMO.
I do know the source on this one though, and I also know, to start with, these are estimates.

But let's take a look into it, shall we?

""Pay-to-play" subscription based games generated $2.7 billion in revenue in 2014 while "Free-to-play" games made $7.8 billion. The free to play market is over 3x larger than the pay to play one."
#4 - World of Warcraft 2015 Revenue: $814M
#3 - Dungeon Fighter Online 2015 Revenue: $1,052M

DFO's revenue matches 13,5% of F2P revenue. WoW's revenue matches 30,1% of the P2P revenue.

And this is of course with data from 2015, a particularly bad year for WoW (no new expansion, big content drought with only one major - and not particularly well received - content patch, in very likely the least well received WoW expansion to date).

[zingar]

And this is of course with data from 2015, a particularly bad year for WoW (no new expansion, big content drought with only one major - and not particularly well received - content patch, in very likely the least well received WoW expansion to date).

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net...170986/gw2.jpg
DFO still made more money than WoW in 2014

[Deadite]

By a website that considers League of Legends an MMO.

How is LoL not a MMO? Did you read the top of the linked page? It said MMO and MMORPG. I can see nothing anyone says will sway you. If you don't think that a free game that makes more than a sub based game with a cash shop is more popular then not my problem. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. I will leave you to your echo chamber. I am sure you are right and the MMOs.com site is just part of a global conspiracy to make people think that some other game in the world has more people playing it that wow.

[Rhlor]

I think the lineage 2 pvp system is better

[Deleted]

Really makes you think

[Littleraven]

It's probably not the most popular anymore technically but it without a doubt still probably takes up the biggest mind share on the market. I am sure numbers wise there are other MMOs that are more popular in that sense but WoW still is a cultural phenomenon. No other MMO has the main stream cache it does. People have at least heard of Warcraft.

So in that sense yes it is. In terms of the actual people who probably still play many MMOs I would say it is still easily in the top 5.

[Kolvarg]

How is LoL not a MMO? Did you read the top of the linked page? It said MMO and MMORPG. I can see nothing anyone says will sway you. If you don't think that a free game that makes more than a sub based game with a cash shop is more popular then not my problem. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. I will leave you to your echo chamber. I am sure you are right and the MMOs.com site is just part of a global conspiracy to make people think that some other game in the world has more people playing it that wow.

Feel free to explain how LoL is an MMO. Because in my books not all games that are played by a lot of people are MMOs. Tetris isn't an MMO game just because it's one of the most sold and played games to date. LoL is just a small group team based Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, aka MOBA.
5vs5 ~40mins to 1 hour arcade-like matches doesn't match my definition of MMO, no. Otherwise pretty much every multiplayer game is an MMO, hell Call of Duty & Battlefield are "more MMO" than LoL.

And btw this thread is not about MMOs in general, it's clearly stated as "the most popular MMORPG".

Either way, suit yourself, I'm sorry that your baseless claims fail to convince me. And I never said there's any global conspiracy lol, just that the few data available (that's doubtful and unreliable to start with) is not conclusive in any way.

It highly depends on your definition of "Popular", too, which I already addressed, but you'd rather just pick on small random things I say rather than actually adressing my points, so once again, suit yourself.

[Valech]

If it doesn't really matter why did you make the thread?

Then again, you could write this under 95% of adams threads.

[FelPlague]

How is LoL not a MMO? Did you read the top of the linked page? It said MMO and MMORPG. I can see nothing anyone says will sway you. If you don't think that a free game that makes more than a sub based game with a cash shop is more popular then not my problem. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. I will leave you to your echo chamber. I am sure you are right and the MMOs.com site is just part of a global conspiracy to make people think that some other game in the world has more people playing it that wow.

because a MMO is a game where you can play with a MASSIVE amount of people all at one time
if league of legends is a MMO so is call of duty as league you play with 10 people at a time max, call of duty you play with 16 so

Planetside 2 is an mmo, as you can play with hundereds to near a thousand players at once, but battlefield... ehhh maybe... 64 people at a time...

the definition

"A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or MMO) is an online game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players, typically from hundreds to thousands, simultaneously in the same instance (or world).[1] MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although some games differ. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or smartphones and other mobile devices.

MMOs can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a variety of gameplay types, representing many video game genres."

so can in league, you play with hundereds to thousands of people simultaneously in the same instance? ehhhhh i would say no...

10 people is abit smaller then 100-1000 i would say


yes league is a MO (Multiplayer Online)
but IT IS NOT an MMO (MASSIVELY Multiplayer Online)

[Eleccybubb]

How is LoL not a MMO? Did you read the top of the linked page? It said MMO and MMORPG. I can see nothing anyone says will sway you. If you don't think that a free game that makes more than a sub based game with a cash shop is more popular then not my problem. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. I will leave you to your echo chamber. I am sure you are right and the MMOs.com site is just part of a global conspiracy to make people think that some other game in the world has more people playing it that wow.

Because LoL is a MOBA. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.