The greatest MMORPG studios of all time

For the genre's formative fifteen years, SOE *was* the western MMORPG: EverQuest defined the 3D persistent world, Star Wars Galaxies remains the most-mourned sandbox ever shut down, and PlanetSide, EverQuest II, Free Realms, and DC Universe Online each expanded what 'massively multiplayer' could mean. No studio shipped more genre history — or taught more painful lessons, NGE included.

Now: Absorbed — continued as Daybreak Game Company

World of Warcraft is the commercial event the genre is still measured against — the game that took the MMORPG from a hobbyist subculture to twelve million subscribers, and that two decades later still tops most-played charts through Classic and retail alike. One game, sustained for twenty years, is enough for second place.

Now: Still active — Irvine, California, US

'We Create Worlds' wasn't a slogan, it was a roadmap. Origin's Ultima series built the vocabulary of the computer RPG, and Ultima Online proved a graphical persistent world could hold hundreds of thousands of paying citizens. EA closed the studio in 2004; its game is still running, which is its own verdict.

Now: Defunct since 2004

The genre's most important company outside America. NCSOFT turned Lineage into a national industry, built Lineage II, Aion, and Blade & Soul into pillars of the eastern MMORPG, published Guild Wars and City of Heroes in the West, and is still launching new worlds — Throne and Liberty most recently — nearly thirty years in.

Now: Still active — Seongnam, South Korea

Two subscription MMORPGs, both still alive: Final Fantasy XI since 2002, and Final Fantasy XIV — whose A Realm Reborn rebirth is the genre's greatest turnaround and now one of its biggest games. Square Enix runs online worlds with a patience almost nobody else in the industry can afford.

Now: Still active — Tokyo, Japan

RuneScape made the MMORPG free to start, playable anywhere, and culturally universal for a generation of players — and when that generation grew nostalgic, Jagex restored a 2007 backup by referendum and built Old School RuneScape into one of the most-played MMORPGs on Earth. Player governance at that scale is a Jagex invention.

Now: Still active — Cambridge, UK

One shard, twenty-three years. EVE Online's single-universe design produced the deepest player-run economy, politics, and warfare in gaming — events with real headlines and real historians. CCP picked the hardest possible version of the genre and simply never blinked.

Now: Still active — Reykjavík, Iceland

Dark Age of Camelot's realm-vs-realm warfare is among the genre's few true structural inventions, and Mythic's alumni network — Broadsword, ZeniMax Online's leadership, Camelot Unchained — has carried its DNA into three more decades of games. Closed by EA in 2014; outlived by its ideas and, via Broadsword, its games.

Now: Defunct since 2014

Founded by Battle.net's creators, ArenaNet has spent twenty years attacking the genre's business model: Guild Wars made buy-to-play work when subscriptions were gospel, and Guild Wars 2's living world and horizontal progression built the genre's most alt-and-life-friendly big MMO.

Now: Still active — Bellevue, Washington, US

A founding studio twice over: Asheron's Call was there at the genre's birth with monthly content updates before 'live service' had a name, and The Lord of the Rings Online carried the biggest license in fantasy into a persistent world respectfully enough that it's still running — under Turbine's own successor, Standing Stone Games.

Now: Absorbed — continued as Standing Stone Games