by JaeR

Created on: May 19, 2009

It all began back in 1997 when Richard Garriott had an idea that would involve several thousand people who could all play simultaneously in a shared fantasy world. His idea gave birth to Ultima Online which would become the foundations of what is considered to be termed MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game).

Ultima Online's popularity grew to amazing numbers, mostly from a genre niche of people who enjoyed similar fantasy from pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons to PC single player role playing games such as Neverwinter Nights. As a result, online gaming became a hit and slowly began to emerge from the underground of the gaming industry.

As popularity grew, Sony Entertainment decided to capitalize on the genre and in 1999 they created their own MMORPG, EverQuest. The game followed similar formulas to Ultima Online but improved on some aspects such as expanding to 3 dimensional graphics and game play. Sony's EverQuest further strengthened the online gaming industry and popularized it a bit more to the general public.

The MMORPG industry was booming. Hardcore role players were flocking by the numbers to these games. As a result, several other MMORPGs began to surface such as Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot.

However, it wasn't until 2004 when Blizzard released World of Warcraft that MMORPG became mainstream and popular with the general public. Until then, MMORPGs had a large but targeted audience being mostly role players that enjoyed high fantasy. World of Warcraft transcended the genre niche and opened up the market to all types and forms of gamers.

The popularity ignited a slew of online games over the next few years, drawing in hundreds of thousands of mainstream gamers, and MMORPG was thinned down to MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) as several types of online games began to emerge ranging from sci-fi to real time strategy to horror to superhero in order to cater to the general public.

As a result, the idea and thought process behind MMOGs have changed significantly due to various desires and needs of the people playing the games. The old days of exploration and Risk vs. Reward in MMORPGs are gone. What it is replaced with is a watered down version of instant gratification and easily obtained rewards.

This can be looked at as either good or bad as the ideology opens up the appeal to many who would otherwise not be interested in such games. But as a result, the genre niche that once loved the thrill of the unknown and potential threat of death or permanent loss has been diluted to almost non-existence.

The MMOG gaming industry is constantly evolving. What does the next generation of MMOs have in store for us? With visual graphics and technology improving everyday, one can only wait...and dream.

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