Gaming’s future is and has always been massively multiplayer

It’s the end of 2017 and World of Warcraft still dominates the western hemisphere as the most popular massively multiplayer role-playing game on the planet – 13 years after its initial launch. While there are a few stalwarts (Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, and even Star Wars: The Old Republic), the MMORPG hasn’t seen a true hit since the year Azeroth broke the Internet. And yet, as editor of MMORPG.com and GameSpace.com, I’m here to tell you that the genre isn’t dead. It’s the future. It’s the always. The MMO is all around us…you just can’t see it anymore.

See if you all can follow me here, have you heard of Destiny? Have you celebrated a Chicken Dinner in PUBG? Have you decimated opposing tanks in Wargaming’s World of Tanks? Well, then you’ve been playing MMOs that don’t call themselves MMOs. When your average gamer hears that three-letter acronym, they panic, their palms sweat, fears of endless grinding and late-night raid schedules creep in. The MMO genre was a victim of WoW’s mammoth success. The Blizzard-made behemoth created such a vacuum in the industry, that for a good few years every blockbuster studio was trying to replicate its success.