Sony Online Entertainment has just announced today that their kid-friendly free-to-play mega-hit Free Realms has hit the 3 millions registered user mark. This news comes less than seven weeks after the game's launch, and only two weeks after their last milestone of two million registered users.
"SOE worked diligently over the past four years to ensure that Free Realms would take the online space by storm," said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. "We are pleased to be able to provide such a vast, in-depth and, most importantly, fun world to an average of 500,000 new gamers per week."
As with the previous milestones, this one is being celebrated with more exclusive in-game items. The 3M Pet Party Pack will be filled with goodies for use on a character's virtual pets, and players have until June 19th to redeem this special offer. Keep reading just after the jump below for the complete press release.
FREE REALMS™ CELEBRATES THREE MILLION
PLAYER MARK IN LESS THAN SEVEN WEEKS AFTER LAUNCH
"3M Pet Party Pack" Granted to All Three Million Players
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - June 12, 2009 - Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) today announced that more than three million unique users have registered for Free Realms (www.FreeRealms.com), the free-to-play, family-friendly online video game that launched on April 28, 2009. Recently awarded recognition by Guinness World Records for conducting the first concert to take place simultaneously in the real world and a virtual space during E3 in Los Angeles last week, Free Realms continues to redefine the scope and pace of online games.
"SOE worked diligently over the past four years to ensure that Free Realms would take the online space by storm," said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. "We are pleased to be able to provide such a vast, in-depth and, most importantly, fun world to an average of 500,000 new gamers per week."
To celebrate the rapidly growing community of players, SOE will grant its first three million Free Realms registrants the "3M Pet Party Pack," filled with goodies for use with their virtual pets, both cats and dogs. In Free Realms, players are free to do or be anything, including donning the job of pet trainer to raise a pet! From the in-game Marketplace, players can choose from more than 20 different types of playful dogs and cats to train, feed, groom and dress up. Players have until Friday June 19, 2009 (11:59 PM PDT) to redeem the "3M Pet Party Pack".
Free Realms also features 14 other fun jobs to master, as well as the Free Realms Trading Card Game: a full-featured trading card game, playable both digitally within the Free Realms online game and offline via physical card decks sold wherever you buy trading cards.
To support the initial release and launch of Free Realms, nearly one million Station Cash game cards were made available across five major retail chains. Free Realms players can pop into select retailers to purchase Station Cash cards, which are used to redeem Station Cash and buy virtual goodies or upgrade to a Membership status in the game.
Free Realms is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up with content descriptors of Crude Humor and Fantasy Violence. To play Free Realms, visit: http://www.FreeRealms.com.
Reader Comments (25)
Posted: Jun 12th 2009 2:15PM TheJackman said
Not trolling this will happen sadly :(
Posted: Jun 12th 2009 6:25PM (Unverified) said
When they hit the 1 million mark everyone here posted saying it didn't matter because it wasn't real accounts.
When they hit the 2 million mark everyone repeated the same thing.
Now they have hit the 3 million mark and everyone negetive is still saying the same thing. My question is what number do they have to hit before people can acknowledge the game is quality entertainment for the audience it is targeted towards?
The people that dislike this game don't often seem to have a logical reason as to why. I don't play it, but I'm glad it is doing well. More "quality" MMO's is GOOD for the MMO industry no matter the audience.
When they hit the 2 million mark everyone repeated the same thing.
Now they have hit the 3 million mark and everyone negetive is still saying the same thing. My question is what number do they have to hit before people can acknowledge the game is quality entertainment for the audience it is targeted towards?
The people that dislike this game don't often seem to have a logical reason as to why. I don't play it, but I'm glad it is doing well. More "quality" MMO's is GOOD for the MMO industry no matter the audience.
Posted: Jun 12th 2009 9:08PM Atnor said
I dont care and am not hating on SOE because of this story. Obviously, it's a good thing for them to have an increasing number of people download the game, and the only thing we can get from this is more people are doing so. Only SOE knows how many of those people actually spend any cash, and how much, and for how long people stay or become active.
Still, my wife and I both downloaded the game the day after launch, and I was in the beta for about a week. We both played together for one night, and I played another night. Neither one of us have logged in since, and don't plan to. We both got emails at the 2 mil mark saying "Thanks for helping us, here's free ingame items for ya".
So thats 2 accounts of that 3mil that are not giving SOE any cash or playing their game, but still in that marketing number. As long as you understand what the numbers actually are, its still a good thing for them, but maybe not as good as some read into it. The only thing we can discern is that its a favorable trend, that possibly indicates the game is doing well and people are at the least, trying it out.
Still, my wife and I both downloaded the game the day after launch, and I was in the beta for about a week. We both played together for one night, and I played another night. Neither one of us have logged in since, and don't plan to. We both got emails at the 2 mil mark saying "Thanks for helping us, here's free ingame items for ya".
So thats 2 accounts of that 3mil that are not giving SOE any cash or playing their game, but still in that marketing number. As long as you understand what the numbers actually are, its still a good thing for them, but maybe not as good as some read into it. The only thing we can discern is that its a favorable trend, that possibly indicates the game is doing well and people are at the least, trying it out.
Posted: Jun 20th 2009 11:17PM Graill440 said
I was actually checking this game out, my brothers son was playing it. I then looked at some of the leaderboards, hacker city. They need to take care of the cheating going on with their flash security before they lose folks, i cant see paying a sub for poor security, lots of quests though and sidegame, to bad cheating is rampant.
Example: A 50 round tower defense game won in 34 seconds with max score, which is simply impossible, >all< leaderboards regardless of the game are like this, curious why they dont handle it.
Example: A 50 round tower defense game won in 34 seconds with max score, which is simply impossible, >all< leaderboards regardless of the game are like this, curious why they dont handle it.







