Not a single MMO in the top 100 games sold

by Andrew Russo on Apr 15th 2008 10:00AM

World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, MMO industry, Second Life

We had to look through the list created by Next Generation a few times before coming to the conclusion that not one MMO made the list. We all do enjoy a damn fine game of Cooking Mama for the Wii, but where is World of Warcraft? Where is Lord of the Rings Online? Where are the MMOs? What sort of lunacy is this? Luckily, some explanation can be gathered through a nice little link that provides some analysis of the results and the selection criteria:

Numbers take into account only titles released and sold between March 1, 2007 and March 1, 2008
Each game only had to be released in one western territory to be included
Numbers take into account North America and Western Europe only
Numbers represent retail sales only

Turbine's creation, LotRO, neatly fits into qualifying requirements for the list compiled by Next Generation. Running on over to the LotRO website, one doesn't have to search too hard to find, "THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE IS THE #1 SELLING PC GAME ACROSS NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE." The number that fueled that claim is that over 600,000 copies of the game were on pre-order as the game was set for release. Estimates of actual subscribers vary, but, that should make the cut since they are tallying games sold. However, the rules explain that game sales are from retail outlets only, which discounts the online sales LotRO made.

MMOs have made a mark on the video game industry since their inception into the gaming world. They have sold hundreds of thousands of copies through download and retail venues through the original client and the expansions that follow. Refinement is needed in order to accurately portray the real numbers that are floating around out there.

[via Joystiq]