I’m on a kick lately of segmenting out MMOs by uncommonly explored attributes and analyzing numbers. In June, I ranked the best MMORPG by year for the past twenty years (including honorable mentions for each year). In July, I estimated the most played free MMORPGs, sorted by peak player counts. This month, I’m looking at which countries produce the best MMOs.
First, this requires a ranking of the best MMOs. As opposed to June’s best MMORPG blog post, I decided to use an impartial judge to assess the cream of the MMO crop. I selected mmorpg.com’s user ratings as my source due to their ratings’ age and breadth. From there, I chose the top 50 MMOs as a cutoff. This provided a strong sample set without severely diminished quality between the top and bottom of the list. I don’t necessarily agree with the order (Defiance is ahead of World of Warcraft, seriously?), but the list looks solid overall. The result? MMOBro’s first infographic!
The United States and South Korea were the first countries to begin developing MMORPGs in the 90s. Seeing them as #1 and #2 on the list is to be expected. Thus, I find the data more fun than surprising. It is noteworthy that South America is unrepresented, despite what is actually a strong MMO userbase.
It is important to note that mmorpg.com caters to a Western audience which does skew the list. I researched Korean MMO rankings by popularity (as opposed to ratings), but over 90% of their most popular MMOs are developed in South Korea. It then seemed to me that focusing on a single, large audience would make for a more compelling and relevant read. MMOBro also targets a Western audience (by virtue of the whole site being written in English). Thus, I hope (and believe) for our readers, the validity is not lessened.
Feel free to download the infographic and share it. I only ask you drop a link to us in the process.
And for those fact checkers out there, here’s the complete 1-50 list (which may be different now compared to current ratings). Feel free to ask any questions or point out any inconsistencies.
- Black Desert Online (Pearl Abyss – South Korea)
- Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet – USA)
- Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (Square Enix – Japan)
- The Secret World (FunCom – Norway)
- Elder Scrolls Online (ZeniMax Online Studios – USA)
- AD2460 (Fifth Season – Norway)
- Warframe (Digital Extremes – Canada)
- Rift (Trion Worlds – USA)
- Darkfall: Unholy Wars (Aventure S.A. – Greece)
- Blade & Soul (Team Bloodlust – South Korea)
- Marvel Heroes 2016 (Gazillion Entertainment – USA)
- Path of Exile (Grinding Gear Games – New Zealand)
- Destiny (Bungie – USA)
- Eve Online (CCP Games – Iceland)
- Lord of the Rings Online (Turbine, Inc. – USA)
- EverQuest II (Daybreak Games – USA)
- Guild Wars (ArenaNet – USA)
- Final Fantasy XI (Square Enix – Japan)
- Dark Age of Camelot (Mythic/Broadsword Online Games – USA)
- Ryzom (Nevrax/Winch Gate Property Limited – France/Cyprus)
- TERA (Bluehole Studio – South Korea)
- Perpetuum (Avatar Creations – Hungary)
- Aika (JoyImpact – South Korea)
- Atlantica Online (NDOORSGAMES – South Korea)
- WildStar (Carbine Studios – USA)
- Neverwinter (Cryptic Studios – USA)
- PlanetSide 2 (Daybreak Games – USA)
- Fallen Earth (Reloaded Productions – USA)
- Elite: Dangerous (Frontier Developments – England)
- Wizard101 (KingsIsle Entertainment – USA)
- Dungeons & Dragons Online (Turbine, Inc. – USA)
- Ultima Online (Origin Systems/Broadsword Online Games – USA)
- DC Universe Online (Daybreak Games – USA)
- Lineage 2 (NCSoft – South Korea)
- EverQuest (Daybreak Games – USA)
- Anarchy Online (FunCom – Norway)
- Defiance (Trion Worlds – USA)
- Vindictus (devCAT – South Korea)
- World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment – USA)
- Asheron’s Call (Turbine, Inc. – USA)
- Age of Conan: Unchained (FunCom – Norway)
- Firefall (Red 5 Studios – USA)
- Eldevin (Hunted Cow Studios – Scotland)
- PlanetSide (Daybreak Games – USA)
- Xsyon: Prelude (Notorious Games – USA)
- Global Agenda (Hi-Rez Studios – USA)
- Wurm Online (Code Club AB – Sweden)
- Dragon Nest (Eyedentity Games – South Korea)
- Trove (Trion Worlds – USA)
- Aion (NCSoft – South Korea)
I like info-graphics, so well done!
And yes, when it comes to the eastern market, China alone, Korea or Japan – they have their own games and markets we know very little about. I once started looking at free to play Asian MMO titles for a game music post and the rabbit hole went so deep, I was gone for three days. 😉
If you included browser MMOs, the graphic would probably change quite a bit as well. I know there’s a few German MMOs that are (or have been) popular, such as Drakensang, which are browser only. But then, I wouldnt exactly call those ‘great’ games, either. Smaller countries have different budgets and there’s also a cultural thing that either furthers game industries or not. Where I live, the economy has little interest in the entertainment industry as a whole but it’s changing, slowly.
Yeah, there are few different ways to go about it. An only browser games consideration would make for an interesting comparison. I’m not sure where I would draw the line? There are tons of MMORTS games to consider too which only complicates things further.
That said, it’s interesting enough that with proper planning, we could probably make another fun infographic out of it. I like the cultural implications you brought up too.
Proper name for the rating: “which countries are the best with MMO PR lately?” For example both Skyforge and Allods Online have sizeable population but aren’t hyped. #42 (Firefall) is simply dead.
Any method used to qualify the best MMOs will be subjective. Additionally, A popular MMO does not make it a great MMO. My personal rankings would greatly differ, but that wouldn’t make for very unbiased research. Do you have a suggestion for a better way to sort MMOs by quality?