So Many Side Scrolling MMORPGs
Like the dancing / rhythm genre, another industry that pretty much exploded in popularity is the ’2D Side scrolling MMORPG’ genre. If you’ve played a lot of free MMORPGs, the first game that pops into your head when you hear the ’2D Side scrolling’ is probably Maplestory. Maplestory is actually one of the most successful free MMORPGs out there, as it currently has over 80 million players worldwide, EIGHTY MILLION! Just so you have something to compare that with, World of Warcraft only has 11 million subscribers. This isn’t exactly a fair comparison though, as each of World of Warcraft’s 11 million subscribers pay to play the game and Maplestory’s 80 million players are counted by looking at how many game accounts exist, which also counts inactive accounts. Maplestory’s success has led to a lot of copycats though.
With the current trend I expect every major MMORPG publisher to have their own 2D Side-scrolling MMORPG within the next year or so. Nexon has their Maplestory, Outspark has Wind Slayer, OG Planet has LaTale and Ghost Online and lastly Aeria Games has Pi Story. Although there are only 4 Maplestory like ’2D Side Scrolling MMORPGs’ today there are a lot in development. I’m actually surprised it took this long for similar games to get released, as for a long while Maplestory was the only 2D side scrolling MMORPG.
So what’s next? Hopefully MMORPG and MMO publishers start releasing new and unique games rather than copying each other. Sure 1 or 2 other ’2d side scrolling’ games are great, because it gives the gamer a choice, but when there are 4,5,6,7 or even 8 ‘similar titles’ it gets a bit absurd. I’d like developers to commit their energy and passion to creating totally new games, but with the current trend, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
