Facebook's wildly popular gaming Apps, such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and Bejeweled Blitz, successfully implanted casual browser gaming into the general population's consciousness. Small-time internet gaming companies like Zynga Games and PopCap became overnight millionaires, as they watched the success of their simple, low-end gaming creations skyrocket, thanks to the sheer level of exposure the Facebook platform gave them.
Facebook Provides Access to Browser Games
Popular social networking giant Facebook has seen an enormous expansion over the past couple of years. In 2010, the company reported a 145% increase in users in just one year. Partially credited with its success is Facebook's large cache of addicting social games. Roughly 40% of Facebook's 500 millions users report logging into Facebook to play games like FarmVille, Happy Aquarium and Family Feud.
The games are so ubiquitous and viral that a veritable backlash against Facebook App requests developed in 2009, leading Facebook to create administrative controls which allow users to specify security settings related to Facebook App requests.
Browser-based MMOs Draw on Proven Success of RPG Games
Role-playing games have an established fan base, ever since the late 1970s saw the release and wild growth of Dungeons and Dragons gaming. In the late 1990s, users traded their paper dungeon diagrams and multi-sided dice for a heady duty gaming computers and video game consoles. Games such as World of Warcraft dominated the RPG market.
A new breed of games is taking advantage of the story depth found in such MMOs as World of Warcraft, mixed with the addictive popularity of Facebook browser games. While recent reports indicate a limited lifespan for Facebook games, mainly due to lack of new and interesting content, high-end MMOs developers are seeing a continued growth trend for browser-based games outside of Facebook.
Growing Trend for No-Download MMOs
Developers freed from the limits of Facebook hosting are seeing a growth in MMOs playable on browsers. These games don't require a client download and are usually based on the free-to-play, micro-transaction business model. Casual gamers are already used to the free-to-play browser model thanks to Facebook, and are now being treated to more in-depth browser gaming experiences. The other advantage is that these games are playable on any internet-capable computer anywhere, instead of only on the user's home computer.
According to voters at browsermmorpg.com, the Top Ten Browser MMORPGs are:
- Supremacy 1914
- Lords
- NinjaManager - Naruto Online
- NEaB
- Dragon's Call
- Legends of Elveron
- MagicDuel
- GodQuest
- Envy - The Game
- Draco
Browser MMOs seem to be a hybrid of the success of Facebook Games and the popularity of downloadable MMO games. Will the trend last? Longevity will likely depend on the amount of depth and quality browser MMO developers can bring to the relatively young market.
Stephanie Cox - Stephanie earned a B.S. in General Science with minors in physics and professional writing from Portland State University. As a teenager, ...
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