naznatips said:
First of all, there are absolutely not more WRPGs than JRPGs in development. In fact, the difference is well over 2 to 1 in JRPG favor. It's foolish to look to gamerankings for JRPGs releasing because A) They screw up on the genres (often completely missing SRPGs among the JRPGs), and B) They only record those being released in America, which the majority of JRPGs are not. Second, MMOs are notorious for reporting trial accounts in their subscribers. Even Blizzard does it. They consider that an "active subscription." Also, lineage never topped 3 million active subscribers. But again, this is all besides the point: You said popularity. You said that WRPGs and MMORPGs are becomming more popular, but this simply is not true. MMORPGs make more money (well the ones that don't flop anyway, and when an MMO flops its a massive flop), but they are not the better selling genre. You have to dig all the way back to a 1998 MMORPG to find one besides WoW which even remotely competed in sales. |
There are also many small, european wrpgs that aren't listed in gamerankings.
I have never heard of people listing trial accounts as subscribers, but I wouldn't put it past some. However Blizzard does NOT do that:
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
Lineage 2 "only" had 3 millions active subscribers at one point, but over 14 millions people paid to play the game. Just look at the massive growth the MMORPG genre is having:
The MMORPG scene increased over 1500% in the last 8 years. And this chart is a compilation of sources, not an estimate, so there are still dozens of MMORPGs that weren't taken into account in the chart (it measures paying costumers only).