10-crazy-mmo-facts

A $48 million WoW theme-park, the RuneScape nation, the Minecraft world conga, the earliest MMORPG, and much more.

To excuse a twenty year old pun, these amazing MMO statistics and wild MMORPG facts put the wow in WoW. From EverQuest to EVE Online, we've got some facts that will blow your noodle, so sit back, and enjoy.

1) The Earliest MMORPG was in the 80s

The earliest MMOs are usually associated with the 90s. It's a matter of contention, but many industry fans consider the earliest MMO to date as far back as 1985. The Island of Kesmai, was one of the very first multi-user dungeon (MUD) experiences. It was a roguelike, pseudo-graphical game developed by two students from the University of Virginia, John Taylor and Kelton Flynn.

2) There is a $48-million Knockoff WoW Theme Park

As well as World of Warcraft knockoffs, like China's "World of Fight", there is even a gigantic theme park in China widely considered to be a rip off of WoW and StarCraft. World Joyland features such rides as Descent from Blood Mountain. The reviews are not kind. No, they don't have Blizzard's permission. And yes, we do still really want to visit.

3) A Lot of Celebrities Play MMOs

Ever feeling like you're wasting your time playing MMOs when you could be a big Hollywood star? Don't let their glitz and glam fool you, plenty of A-listers are said to love to raid: Cameron Diaz, Robin Williams, Kristian Nairn, Mila Kunis, Jessica Simpson, and as we recently reported, Jamie Lee Curtis and her family. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were reported to play WoW together too back in the day.

4) Nicole Richie is a Hidden Celebrity NPC

While we're talking of celebrities, one of WoW's most iconic NPCs is Haris Pilton of Shattrath City. Less well known is her one-time bestie and frenemy, Ricole Nichie located right next to her. The reason she's gone under the radar? Ricole Nichie is invisible to all players excluding priests with the Eye of Divinity equipped. It looks like we're going to have to update our NPC Hall of Fame.

5) World of Warcraft's Own Virus Helped Us Deal with Covid-19

When Hakkar the Soulflayer's Corrupted Blood spell broke out of containment it spread like wildfire. Wow players unintentionally (and intentionally) spread the plague throughout the neighbouring lands, even NPCs could spread it. It became such a phenomenon that the Corrupted Blood infection was studied by virus experts, and those studies were used when coronavirus began spreading at pace throughout the world. At least Azeroth didn't have to contend with anti-blooders claiming that Corrupted Blood was a made-up fantasy by the "global elites".

6) MMOs Are Worth $43 Billion

According to Statistica, MMOs combined with MOBAs, had a market size of $43billion in 2021. That's up from $25 billion in 2017. Who says the MMO genre is dead? Not us. So if you're wondering how much the entirety of the MMO sphere is worth, we can now say that it's about the same as Twitter. Just for the love of God, please don't let Elon Musk get his hands all over our beloved MMORPGs. He'll only end up changing EVE Online's Jump Gates into jampacked Vegas Loop tunnels.

7) EVE Online Regularly Breaks its Own Guinness World Records

There's a reason you think you've seen those stories about EVE Online's "most expensive video game battle" and "most concurrent players in a video game battle" so many times. And that reason is that they just keep breaking them, again and again and again. We love EVE Online here, and despite what the YouTuber "EVE is dead" naysayers claim, they've had their best years for player count and new players on record. Which is a fact that's no doubt useful for their regular astronomically huge battles. It's hard to imagine anyone will ever beat their records, and we'll be sure to keep reporting on them.

8) EverQuest was Banned in Brazil

That's right, EverQuest, of all games, was banned in Brazil in 2007. And for the silliest of reasons. It was banned (alongside Counterstrike) because it gave you ethical decisions to make, such as whether your character should perform selfless or selfish acts. This was deemed to be subverting public order. Thank goodness players don't have to make those sorts of decisions in the real world, eh?

9) EverQuest 2 Allowed for RL Pizza Ordering In-Game

In 2005, EverQuest 2 partnered with Pizza Hut in a move that allowed players to type the command /pizza and bring up a pizza ordering window without ever having to quit or even minimize the game. All we have to say about this one is that whoever thought of it is a genius and that it's a damn tragedy that it was discontinued.

10) RuneScape has had More Members than Nearly Every Nation on Earth

Reliable statistics on total sign-ups are difficult to come across, especially when factoring in players with multiple accounts and publishers who creatively boost their numbers. Some east-Asian MMOs like Dungeon Fighter Online and Fantasy Westward Journey claim to have beaten RuneScape's record, but their numbers are impossible to independently verify.

One we can rely on, however, is Jagex who on the 25th of July 2017 revealed the figures of total accounts ever created for RuneScape. And that number was a staggering 254,994,744. For context, there are only four countries in the world with a population bigger than that, the US, China, India and Indonesia. While, of course, not all of these accounts are active – should they wish to declare themselves a nation, we would be sure to sign up for our citizenship.

Bonus Fact: Minecraft Players Could Conga-line Around the World

Minecraft is not a true MMO in our books, but it's certainly MMO adjacent. With 122 million copies sold and a predicted 55 million monthly players, the Minecraft Nation could certainly give RuneScape a run for its money. After hitting this milestone, they celebrated with some fun facts, including how those numbers would mean that there are 12 million Minecraft players who hate cilantro. More impressive in our cilantro-loving books is the fact that they have enough players to Conga around the earth. But hey, talking is cheap. Let's see you try.

Do you know any crazy MMO facts or amazing MMORPG statistics that we missed? Let us know them via our social channels.

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