The List

It all began with a mod. While some observers trace the history of the mobile online battle arena category back as far as the 1989 Sega console game Herzog Zwei, it's more common to cite Aeon of Strife. A fan-made StarCraft custom map released nine years later, it was four on four, but with a player squad vs. an AI one and without leveling up. It was also the inspiration for the 2003 Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients, which featured two human teams and in-match hero advancement.

It’s easy to get carried away with cynicism. The MMO market is lacking in both quality and quantity for new releases, as well as overall diversity. We’ve reached a point where the games available cater to a wide range of different audiences and anything new is seen as little more than a hybrid of concepts or unappealing to the mass market. Innovation isn’t dead; it’s just harder to come by these days.

Today’s MMO market isn’t what it used to be. A little less than a decade ago everyone was playing the same handful of games and there wasn’t much MMO-hopping going on. Free-to-play was all but nonexistent and unless you paid a subscription for a PC MMORPG, you weren’t playing much in the way of persistent online games. Nowadays, you can boot up an MMO on everything from your smartphone and PC to consoles and tablets. They’re everywhere.

E3 2015 was a historic event for the gaming industry. Whether you’re an old-school gamer that was dying to finally see Final Fantasy VII’s remake announced, one of the few people that held out hope The Last Guardian was still a thing, or just a fan of gaming looking forward to the biggest and best new games the industry has to offer, there was something for everyone. Hell, we even got the first ever PC Gaming Show this year! That has literally never happened.

Rumors don't come my way nearly as often as they did when I was a full-time editor, but even so, it's unusual for more than a few days to pass without seeing any. The period immediately before E3, which opens up today, has always occasioned an uptick in volume, so unsurprisingly, that has happened again this year.

Whenever an MMO is localized to the West from a different country, there are a whole host of challenges involved. Not only does all of the dialogue have to be translated, but content has to be localized as well. Material may have to be changed or censored or updated for a new audience and payment models are almost never the same.

If we were to count all the MMOGs and quasi-MMOGs presently in various stages of testing, I have no doubt that the total would have three digits. Naturally, they'd differ widely with respect to how much interest they are generating. Frankly, we'd find a fair number that are effectively invisible, unknown except to the most ardent industry observers.

Echo of Soul, an upcoming Korean MMO developed by Nvius and published by Aeria Games. The good news is that if you’re looking for a unique, engaging, and exciting MMO to dump dozens or even hundreds of hours into, there are lots of options out there to pick from. The bad news is that Echo of Souls is not one of them. As several of us pointed out in impressions pieces from the Closed Beta, it’s not really a good game, but it’s not really a bad game either. It’s just kind of... there.

Does anyone actually know how many MMOGs are out there now? I certainly don't. Indeed, the category has grown so much that I can no longer even estimate the total number with any real confidence. Many are, of course, not very prominent. Others are a lot more visible and fare far better in terms of attracting and holding our attention. This is my completely personal, subjective ranking of the titles that have had the most interest value for me so far this year.

For the past year, my day job has required that I commute about 2 hours, each way, every single day. A necessary result of this is that I often end up spending 20 hours or more in my car every week just driving. This leaves a lot of time for thinking, listening to music, and, most recently, listening to audiobooks. This newfound idle time has rekindled my interest in fictional fantasy, something I stopped really reading over the last several years.

In almost two decades of watching and writing about the massively multiplayer landscape, the announcement of a new project has never failed to catch my attention. That said, they don't all do so to the same degree; some interest me far more than others. Over the years, I've seen at least several hundred titles enter development. For a variety of reasons, they didn't all make it as far as launch, including some that had exceptional appeal for me.

Buy-to-play MMOs are becoming more and more popular around the industry. It’s clear that free-to-play games are expanding and they're becoming more and more popular, but they’re not the only alternative to subscription based games. Even for MMOs, options exist for you to buy the game itself (or a registration code, in most instances) then never have to pay another dime again, unless you want to.

Pillars of Eternity is a game that does a lot of things right for not only its genre, but in general. MMOs and other types of games across our industry could learn a thing or two from what Obsidian has delivered to use in 2015. It’s a game that’s equal parts nostalgic and fresh, both approachable and challenging, and above all else, immensely engaging.

Chances are you’ve probably heard about how great Pillars of Eternity is and if you’re not already playing it, then you likely will be soon. But if you have somehow managed to evade the recent hype, ignore the reviews flooding the internet, and just generally don’t think it’s worth your time, this article’s mission is to convince you otherwise. Pillars of Eternity isn’t going to be the perfect game for everyone, but it’s a game that everyone should at least play.

With hundreds of titles available and in development, the MMOG space is more competitive than ever. Accordingly, most don't gain much attention from either the player community or the media. Even for those that do, maintaining visibility, awareness and brand image over the long term can be a struggle, especially after the shiny newness wears off. Listed in order of age, here are some still-live games that retain little or none of the market mojo they once had.