World of Warcraft changed the MMO landscape on November 23rd, 2004, but 174 MMOs have come out since that fateful day. We rank them in this completely and totally subjective list.

World of Warcraft changed the way people look at MMORPGs when it launched on November 23rd, 2004. Since that time, according to our game list, 174 new MMOs have been launched and survive to this day. Of those launched prior to World of Warcraft, only 63 continue operation.

Sure, there are other games we have not listed yet (we’re working on it) and quite a few games have launches and died (I’m looking at you Tabula Rasa). I’m also suffering from some North American bias and only counting the games on this side of the pond.

Still, that’s a fantastic number of games in only five years that have either made it or – worst case – not died since WoW launched. Yet, despite the 174 new entries, not one has even flirted with a fraction of WoW’s success, let alone matched it critically or commercially.

Read it all here.

Granted it is a subjective list and everyone will have differing opinions on what should be on that list.  BUT Club Penguin? I mean come on, no one in their right mind has ever heard of that game.  Unless that was thrown in as a joke, you have completely lost it.

Is this a joke post?

WTF is Club Penguin ?

 Good list. Except Club Penguin. Happy to see Guild Wars up there, I may not play anymore but It's still amazing.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Granted it is a subjective list and everyone will have differing opinions on what should be on that list.  BUT Club Penguin? I mean come on, no one in their right mind has ever heard of that game.  Unless that was thrown in as a joke, you have completely lost it.

$350 million dollars doesn't lie. When Disney puts that kind of money into a one-product company, it says something. 

The game was a huge success, even if almost no one over the age of 16 plays it.

I didn't say it was a rank of the Top 10 Traditional MMOs, or Hardcore MMOs, etc.

Originally posted by Daft

WTF? Were is EQ2? This list is Bologna. If i took a dump on my keyboard, the dump would  put something better on the screen then this list.

EQ2 launched prior to WoW. 

Yet the wildly popular, among kids anyway, free worlds or the cartoon network one are nowhere to be found.  Bleh

who said that lol

Originally posted by SonikFlash

Yet the wildly popular, among kids anyway, free worlds or the cartoon network one are nowhere to be found.  Bleh

Neither had the success of Club Penguin. Free Realms is somewhat struggling from all accounts. Great initial numbers, very little retention. Same for FusionFall. I considered both.

 P.S. To Daft: Fair enough.

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by Daft

who said that lol

 

History.

EQII launched on November 8th, 2004. WoW launched on November 23rd of the same year.

Given the entire premise of the article was "games launched since WoW," it would have been silly to include EQII... even if it was only a couple weeks before it.

Originally posted by SonikFlash

Yet the wildly popular, among kids anyway, free worlds or the cartoon network one are nowhere to be found.  Bleh

 

Neither had the success of Club Penguin. Free Realms is somewhat struggling from all accounts. Great initial numbers, very little retention. Same for FusionFall. I considered both.

Thats why i edited my post right after i made it. Even before your comeback post was posted.

I think this is a very sound list, and well-researched. I think some MMORPG.com forumites can be quite myopic when it comes to the MMO industry.  I'm rather curious though why Vanguard made the list and not, say Warhammer or Age of Conan..not that I've played either of them.  While none of the three lived up to their hype, Warhammer at the least wasn't a failure at launch.

Mind, I find the other less prominent selections for your list less bothersome which says a lot about Vanguard really.

As far as the Free realms and Cartoon network online stuff goes I think a lot of the problem is that they were trying to get kids into a subcription based game and not a lot of parents are into paying subcriptions.

Sure they will buy the kid a game box but for some reason most will not take out a gaming subcription.

WAAAY back when when Runescape was my intro to mmos and they made the members version of the game I noticed right away after subcribing that the population was about 90% teens and adults.

The preteens were by and large stuck back in the add powered f2p model. I had a few friends (RL friends)  who were in their teens that used mom or dads credit card with their permission using their own money. But none of THEIR younger frinds could convince mom and dad to spring for a $5 a month memebership.

When I tried the games(cartoon network and free realms) I found both of them to have far from fluid controls (Especially the much hyped Kart racing in free realms)

Interesting list but I really think Fallen Earth and Aion are just too new to be here-give them a quarter year at least!

What were #11 and 12?

I never did play Pirates of the Burning sea, but I think I might give the trial a shot.

Originally posted by Liltawen

Interesting list but I really think Fallen Earth and Aion are just too new to be here-give them a quarter year at least!

What were #11 and 12?

I also considered that same thing with those two new games. Ultimately, I decided to include them, but I wavered on that until the last second. In the end, given commercial success was not my primary measurement, I figured it was OK to put them in.

Basically, I went through the list post-WoW and made a giant list. That included every game on there, plus a few more. From that, I picked 10.

The other games I had briefly considered were: Habbo, Dofus, Silkroad Online, Age of Conan, Free Realms, Mabinogi, Champions Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic, Darkfall and Warhammer Online.

To be clear, that doesn't mean I truly was going to put them on. Just that they popped out at me as I was browsing through.

Runes of Magic and Silkroad were likely 11 and 12, if I had to label it.

Sadly, the top 10 MMOs since WoW hasn't quite lived up to our expectations. I doubt any of these games even rival EQ numbers in its prime.

Originally posted by brostyn

Sadly, the top 10 MMOs since WoW hasn't quite lived up to our expectations. I doubt any of these games even rival EQ numbers in its prime.

numbers don't always = good game

Lotro is the perfect example...i doubt it has more than 700k subs but its a damn fine game (and no1 on this list)

First off, LotRO deserves that #1 spot

With that aside, I pretty much agree with tho whole list but I do think EQ2 should be up there. I know i launced about 2 weeks before WoW but it wasnt ready. SoE learned a lot and worked hard on their game to make it where it is today (kinda like Vanguard imo). I think EQ2 could have been a notible exception given it is right there with WoWs launch
 

Originally posted by brostyn

Sadly, the top 10 MMOs since WoW hasn't quite lived up to our expectations. I doubt any of these games even rival EQ numbers in its prime.

That's the expected result when you flood the market with MMOs in an ultra-fast pace, as it has been post-WoW, only the truly fun or addictive ones will retain enough users to be called big and survive, the challenge of subscription MMOs... or generate enough money, the challenge of F2P MMOs that is potentially easier (and that's the reason you see them being the "huge majority" of the MMOs in all these 174, but only 4 made it into this top 10).

However, they will never (or really really few, who knows for how long) touch the great subscription numbers of the past, much less the WoWesque numbers.