Redefining “massively” to fit lots more players into MMOs

Gaming veterans like Mark Jacobs, CEO of Unchained Entertainment, have been thinking about staging massive battles in online games for a long time. Working on Final Stand: Ragnarok, Jacobs wants to see how many thousands of players can fit inside — anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 players fighting each other — in the same fantasy warrior battle.

Jacobs talked about this topic in a session dubbed, Redefining ‘massively’ in MMOs: How many players can you fit in an online multiplayer game at our GamesBeat Summit 2024 event in Los Angeles in May. He was joined on the panel by Christopher Caen, a consultant at The Seven and a veteran of VRML in the 1990s; Rashid Mansoor, CEO of Meta Gravity, which is also working on creating massive concurrency in online games; and moderator Wanda Meloni, a longtime gaming analyst at M2 Insights. They talked about whether tech is really ready to put together the massive online gatherings we have dreamed about.