MMORPG Editorials

Tabula Rasa was a pay to play sci-fi themed MMORPG published by NCSoft which released  in November 2, 2007 and shut down 2 years later in February 28, 2009. Isn’t it a shame that a game that cost NCSoft a whopping $106 million to develop should go to waste? There’s no doubt the game was a financial disaster for NCSoft, as the game only made $6 million in revenue since release, but instead of shutting the game down all together, NCSoft should have released the game the game as a free...

Even though free to play MMORPGs / MMOs are getting more and more popular in North America and Europe, they’re still nothing compared to the size of the industry in China.  In fact, Chinese gamers spent a whopping $5 billion in 2009 on MMORPGs while Americans only spent $3.8 billion. A big chunk of that $3.8 billion spent in the United States comes from subscription based games like World of Warcraft, Eve Online and Warhammer Online. If you take out subscription based games from the equation,...

Most of the free to play MMORPGs and MMO Games here on MMOHut originated in either South Korea or China, most of them coming from South Korea. It’s a shame that there are only a handful of Western free to play titles, as the few out there are actually quite good (Battlefield Heroes and Battleforge are the only two that come to mind at the moment). Even though there are hundreds of free to play Korean and Chinese MMOs here in North America there are easily hundreds more in Korea that never made...

Is anyone else confused by all the free to play MMORPGs that use the ‘Three Kingdoms’ theme? Just this month two more games set in this era of Chinese history were announced: Perfect World’s Heroes of the Three Kingdoms, and Aeria’s Kingdom Heroes. Other MMORPGs already released with similar titles include Warriors of the Three Kingdoms and Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins. And these are just the games with ‘Three Kingdoms’ in the title, almost every MMORPG...

Age of Conan originally launched in May 2008 and boasted a whopping 700,000 subscribers. Each of those subscribers were paying a cool $14.99/mo to play the game, which meant Funcom was making boatloads of money. Let’s fast forward to January 2009. The game’s once impressive 700,000 subscribers dwindled down to “Below 100,000″. 49 worldwide servers became 18. The game’s director Gaute Godager quit because he was “Dissatisfied with the game”.Age of Conan...

Many gamers were first introduced to the MMORPG genre by World of Warcraft which was released in 2004. This explains why so many people compare every new MMORPG release to WoW, and even go so far as to label them clones of Blizzard’s fantasy MMORPG. The truth is MMORPGs have been around for much longer. Many classic MMORPGs are still alive and kicking. Many of them are even free to play or offer free trials. Below are some of the oldest: Meridian 59 (1996)Meridian 59 was first released...

Hello all MMOHut readers! I will be publishing a new editorial every week asking you to name your best, worst experiences in online gaming and I will ask you to leave your experiences and views on the topic of the week. I am very interested to hear your stories, and please feel free to put forward an idea for the topic in next week’s editorial. I thought a good start point would be: What was your first foray into an MMO? What was the game? Were you any good at it? Did you enjoy it? Did it put you...

The MMOFPS. A classic gaming genre, loved by many and arguably the biggest genre there is in the gaming world. But has it lost its originality? After a quick glance at the many online titles on offer, I can’t help but feel it has. Now, this segment may be a bit miserable for my first editorial (and I promise I’m a very happy person) but the lack of new, innovative MMOFPS shooters on offer is beginning to dampen my desire to play them. The gaming in titles like ‘Sudden Attack’...