Massively Multiplayer Online Game

Game genre theme

Multiplayer games that are capable of supporting hundreds or thousands players simultaneously.

718
games
25
platforms

Alternate names: MMO, MMOG, Persistent Online Game

Editor/usage note: In recent years (2012 onward, possibly even earlier), MMO has become a term used to refer to simply multiplayer games, thus its usage is often very misleading and vague.
The term "massively multiplayer online role-playing game" (MMORPG) was coined by Richard Garriott of Ultima fame. This style of game was formally called "graphical MUDs".
Mandatory traits:
* Persistent world - world continues to operate even when the player disconnects and is there when they reconnect the next day, changes made by the players are somewhat permanent.
* Hundreds of concurrent players on same server/shard where they can interact with each other. - not when they're separated into instances of 4-32 players each, even if on same server.
If either of the above is missing, then it's not an MMO.

Traits that indicate it is NOT an MMO: (not exclusive as MMOs may have extra modes where these are present, but they're really good indicators)
* Player lobby
* Matchmaking

Popular tags

actionadventure actionrpg adventurerpg arenashooter arg cardbattle cards citybuilding dungeoncrawler fallingblocks firstpersonshooter hackandslash interactivefiction lifesimulation match3 mud realtimestrategy roguelike rpg sandbox spacecombatsim stacsim tactical tacticalrpg twinstickshooter vehicularcombat virtualpets

Parent groups

Corrupted terms, Multiplayer

Child groups

MUD, Pay-once MMO

Games by year

8688909294969800020406081012141618202224 521326390 A
A1986 - First graphical MMO

The first Massively Multiplayer Online Game video game was released in 1987.

Sony Online Entertainment, Square Enix and Electronic Arts published most of these games.

Platforms

Windows 341
Linux 215
Internet Only 45
Mac OS X 29
PS4 16
PS2 11
Flash 9
Xbox One 8
Android 7
PS3 7
X360 6
BSD 4
Mac OS Classic 3
iOS 2
OS/2 2
MS-DOS 2
Wii U 2
Unix 2
Mobile 1
N-Gage 1
Solaris 1
TizenOS 1
Amiga AGA 1
Saturn 1
Apple II E 1