VOIG has posted its quarterly report about MMO subscriptions and market share, and there are some very curious results to be found.  In fact, Wandering Goblin’s analysis of the data has yielded some rather surprising findings.  Wanna know what we found?  Ok, but it’s a secret…shhhhh.

The site tracks more than 120 MMOs.  According to the data on the site, there are around 40 million active subscriptions for MMOs worldwide. If a game captures even 1% of the market share, that’s 400,000 customers.  

There are at least 40,000,000 people playing online RPGs worldwide.  That is a heck of a lot of geeks, folks!

In the past, we’ve also run across claims made by some MMO companies — the Wandering Goblin editors have consistently called BS on those claims, by the way – that their game alone has, say, 25 million subscribers.  The data at VOIG pretty much puts those outrageous claims to rest as outright fabrications.   

Of the MMOs That Charge a Monthly Fee:

• World of Warcraft has the largest market share of any MMO in the world, at more than 26%.   Considering that the site tracks 120+ MMOs, that is a huge percentage.  WoW is simply dominating the market like nothing else.
• According to our little analysis of the charts, Lineage, followed closely by Lineage II, are still quite large with just over 3% of overall market share each.  Our subjective impression is that Asian markets are primarily supporting these titles.
• FFXI came next, with a surprisingly large 1.4% market share.  Again, most subscriptions are in Asia.
• LOTRO is the second largest Western subscription based MMO on the market.  Being that the game only released this year, that is impressive.  Their subscriber base?  About 300,000 players. 
• The next largest subscription based MMO is Eve Online.
• Next comes Everquest II, followed closely by City of Heroes/Villians, and then by the original Everquest, all with similar numbers.

Among the bigger surprises to be found from perusing the charts is the influence on the revenue structure of the game on the number of subscribers.  Although many MMOs try to seperate geeks from their money by using a subscription model, an even greater number of games use microtransactions.  In a nutshell, free-to-play games that use microtransactions to generate revenue are extremely popular.

Free to Play MMOs:

• Second Life boasts a huge market share, at nearly 19%.  The fact that they count everyone that has ever signed up for SL in that figure certainly skews the statistics, quite frankly.  Despite this, SL is obviously a large and influential virtual world.
• Guild Wars is huge, with a 12.6% market share.  Again, however, they count everyone that’s ever played the game as a subscriber.  However, GW asks you to buy the game, at $49.99 US per copy.  The other free MMOs are free to download and play, and survive by microtransactions.
• Knight Online has nearly 12% of the market.
• The badly-named Dofus — a cartoony, free to play Asian MMO — has a huge footprint, at just under 10%.
• Entropia Universe, which is another free virtual world, also has a very large footprint. 

The charts reveal other curious things.  WoW is obviously the 800 pound gorilla of the online world, but other games are surprisingly influential.  Guild Wars is far larger than most people think, and LOTRO is growing by leaps and bounds.  Non-Western customers, though used to free-to-play MMOs, is nonetheless supporting three large fee-based MMOs in Lineage, Lineage II, and FFXI, titles that are underrepresented in the West.

Another curious fact we found when perusing the data?  Half the MMOs in the world are absolutely free.  Half.

“You realize we’re paying $14.99 a month for this, right?”

In terms of pure numbers of customers, the five biggest MMOs in the world are:

1. WoW
2. Second Life
3. Guild Wars
4. Knight Online
5. Dofus

Our guess is that at least a few of those games will surprise you.  It certainly surprised us, and we do this for a living.

You can peruse the charts yourself, if you are so inclined, right here.