If you relied solely on the mainstream media for your knowledge of online trends (more fool you), you'd be forgiven for thinking there was only one virtual world. Second Life has hoovered up huge swathes of column inches and airtime over the past 12 months (see earlier post on the Second Life media frenzy) with only the occasional nod to World of Warcraft or Habbo Hotel.
However, there's much more to virtual worlds than Second Life. Immersive online environments are a huge growth area, as demonstrated by the below round-up of 50 virtual worlds, ranked by approximate user numbers (with a few, for which I couldn't source viable user data, tacked on the end). It's worth stating that the approximate user figures are just that: approximate. Gleaned from a wide range of different sources, they are mostly self-reported and cover a multitude of differing definitions. I've tried to reconcile the figures wherever possible to try and reflect number of active users rather than number of avatars or visitors to the website, although many will still be way off base.
In terms of trends, the kids market appears to be a significant growth area and that's without including avatar chat sites (e.g. IMVU, Zwinktopia) or the growing legion of pet/doll sites (e.g. NeoPets, GoPets, MyePets, Be-Bratz, Stardoll).
 | World of Warcraft http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ Blizzard Entertainment Launched: 2004 Approximate no. of users: 9m |
 | Habbo Hotel http://www.habbo.com/ Sulake Launched: 2000 Approximate no. of users: 7.5m |
 | Nicktropolis http://www.nick.com/nicktropolis/ Nickelodeon Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: 5.1m |
 | Runescape http://www.runescape.com/ Jagex Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: 5m |
 | Club Penguin http://www.clubpenguin.com/ New Horizon Interactive / Disney Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 4m |
 | Knight Online http://www.knightonlineworld.com/ MGame Corporation / Noah System Launched: 2004 Approximate no. of users: 4m |
 | Barbie Girls http://www.barbiegirls.com/ Mattel Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: 4m |
 | Coke Studios http://www.mycoke.com/ Studiocom / The Coca-Cola Company Launched: 2002 Approximate no. of users: 4m |
 | Gaia Online http://www.gaiaonline.com/ Gaia Interactive Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 3.5m |
 | MapleStory http://www.maplestory.com/ Wizet / Nexon Launched: 1999 Approximate no. of users: 3m |
 | Dofus http://www.dofus.com/ Ankama Games Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 3m |
 | Guild Wars http://www.guildwars.com/ NCsoft Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 2m |
 | Whyville http://www.whyville.net/ Numedeon Launched: 1999 Approximate no. of users: 1.7m |
 | Second Life http://secondlife.com/ Linden Lab Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 1.5m |
 | Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom http://vmk.disney.go.com/ Sulake Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 1.4m |
 | Disney's Toontown http://play.toontown.com/ Disney Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 1.2m |
 | Mokitown http://www.mobile-kids.net/ Neue Digitale / Daimler Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: 1.1m |
 | Lineage / Lineage II http://www.lineage.com/ NCsoft Launched: 1998 Approximate no. of users: 1m |
 | There http://www.there.com/ Makena Technologies Launched: 1998 Approximate no. of users: 1m |
 | BOTS http://bots.acclaim.com/ Acclaim Games Launched: 2006 Approximate no. of users: 1m |
 | Webkinz World http://www.webkinz.com/ Ganz Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 1m |
 | AlphaWorld http://www.activeworlds.com/ Active Worlds Launched: 1997 Approximate no. of users: 900,000 |
 | Entropia Universe http://www.entropiauniverse.com/ MindArk Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 600,000 |
 | Virtual MTV http://www.vmtv.com/ Makena Technologies Launched: 2006 Approximate no. of users: 600,000 |
 | Virtual World of Kaneva http://www.kaneva.com/ Kaneva Launched: 2004 Approximate no. of users: 600,000 |
 | Final Fantasy XI: Online http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/ Square Launched: 2002 Approximate no. of users: 500,000 |
 | EverQuest / EverQuest II http://everquest.station.sony.com/ Sony Online Entertainment Launched: 1999 Approximate no. of users: 500,000 |
 | Faketown http://www.faketown.com/ Identity Play Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: 500,000 |
 | Dubit http://www.dubitchat.com/ Dubit Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: 500,000 |
 | Cybertown http://www.cybertown.com/ Integrated Virtual Networks Launched: 1995 Approximate no. of users: 500,000 |
 | Playdo http://beta.playdo.com/ Playdo Launched: 2000 Approximate no. of users: 400,000 |
 | Eve Online http://www.eve-online.com/ CCP Games Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 200,000 |
 | Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates http://www.puzzlepirates.com/ Three Rings Design / Ubisoft Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 200,000 |
 | Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar http://www.lotro.com/ Turbine, Inc. Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: 200,000 |
 | Star Wars Galaxies http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/ LucasArts Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: 200,000 |
 | City of Heroes / City of Villains http://uk.cityofheroes.com/ Cryptic Studios / NCsoft Launched: 2004 Approximate no. of users: 180,000 |
 | vSide http://www.vside.com/ Doppelganger Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: 150,000 |
 | Ultima Online http://www.uo.com/ Electronic Arts Launched: 1997 Approximate no. of users: 135,000 |
 | Dark Age of Camelot http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/ Mythic Entertainment / Electronic Arts Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: 125,000 |
 | The Sims Online http://www.ea.com/official/thesims/thesimsonline/ Maxis / Electronic Arts Launched: 2002 Approximate no. of users: 100,000 |
 | Xivio http://www.xivio.com/ Xivio Launched: 2006 Approximate no. of users: 22,000 |
 | citypixel http://www.citypixel.com/ citypixel Launched: 2006 Approximate no. of users: 20,000 |
 | Teen Second Life http://teen.secondlife.com/ Linden Lab Launched: 2005 Approximate no. of users: 5,000 |
 | Westward Journey II / Fantasy Westward Journey http://corp.163.com/eng/games/westward_journey.html NetEase Launched: 2002 / 2004 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | Scions of Fate (Yulgang) http://fate.netgame.com/ KRGsoft Launched: 2006 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | Legend of Mir II / Legend of Mir III http://www.legendofmir.net/ WeMade Entertainment / ActozSoft Launched: 2001 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | MU Online http://globalmuonline.com/ Webzen / K2 Network Launched: 2003 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | HiPiHi http://www.hipihi.com/index_english.html HiPiHi Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | GalaXseeds http://www.galaxseeds.com/ Frima Studios / Corus Entertainment Launched: 2007 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
 | Virtual Ibiza http://www.virtualibiza.com/ Lightmaker Launched: 2002 Approximate no. of users: ?? |
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16 comments:
DOFUS RULES!
http://www.dofus.com
You might want to add Novoking in there, and get ready to put uWorld there.
The old Blaxxun world Cybertown might should be added if I didn't just overlook it.
Great list, by the way.
Wow .. excellent compilation !
Excellent compilation indeed, except, of course, for the "ranking". Of all the platforms shown, the only one that publishes its statistics officially is, of course, Second Life...
The criterium of counting basically "active users" is a long tradition tracing back to the early days of the Internet, when ISPs regularly cheated by creating "lots of mailboxes" to give the press a more impressive number of users. From a technical point of view, what was important was the number of active users on the database — since those were the ones effectively using space on disks, and the infrastructure had to be planned for those potential number of users, not for the ones that effectively used the service (free Internet access, which popped up in 1999 to quickly disappear after the 'net bubble burst, completely wracked the smaller ISPs because of this...).
The big popular social web sites still use that metric. MySpace boasts 200 million users. How many of them have updated their page last week or so? We have no idea. The same applies to Facebook, Ringo, Hi5, Friendster, eBay, PayPal, YouTube, Amazon, and so many more. Every active user on the database is a potentially returning customer, but we have no statistics on how many are effectively using all of those services. WordPress .com says that 1.6 million users created a blog on their site, and 2 million downloads were made of their free software. How many blogs with WordPress have been updated (or, well, read?) in the last week? Nobody knows.
MMORPGs usually tend to display a different statistic: number of users that effectively pay a monthly fee to the company running the MMORPG. This is easily accomplished for things like, say, WoW, where every customer is a paying customer. Second Life, on the other hand (and definitely not the exception here!) has mostly non-paying users. So how should these be tracked, since being a "user" doesn't actually "tie" that person to a commitment with the platform? Someone that logs in every other month — is that an active user or not? (this is actually the number that is quoted for Second Life — a statistic that is openly and clearly published, without tweaking numbers)
Hard to say. When these virtual worlds start having "hundreds of millions" of users, the numbers will not be relevant any more, just like the total number of cellular phones or email addresses are not relevant any more, since we're talking about "billions"...
Hmm, interesting list. Not wanting to be the one that cries "Hey, but you forgot my favorite!"...I'm going to suggest one addition. Anarchy-Online is one of the most successful and social MMORPG's in existence; and, yet, it didn't make a list of virtual worlds peopled by the likes of knightonline ? 0.0 Okay, I'll keep my gasp as inaudible as possible and hope that it was simply an oversight.
great post, very interesting. i am currently trying to figure out the active users number of habbo, club penguin, barbie, vside... and if possible their ARPU. can you help me on how you found those numbers and if you have an idea of the ARPU?
thanks a lor
Greetings, this is Will here and I have been playing MU Online for over 3 years. Gameplay has been fun especially for the in-game events and meeting players from all over the world is a big plus too.
If you are looking for free high quality MU Online game guides, I highly recommend this website I found a few months ago:
http://www.gamevictory.com/mu-online.html
They have a good collection of full length guides on most aspects of MU Online including power leveling, item hunting and winning game events etc.
I personally like the fact that their guides are easy to digest and more importantly highly effective. Being a veteran player myself, I still managed to pick a few handy tricks and tips.
Hope this helps and if you are playing on Midgard server, feel free to pm me for my IGN if you need party members for leveling.
If you wouldnt mind could i have your runescape accont because i cant sign up for some reason. idk why
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