Where are all the mobile MMOs?

by **TheHidden01** Thu Jan 01, 2015 2:26 pm

Everyday Massively posts an interesting topic, and each week day we shall discuss it too! Thanks to Massively for the original article.

So here we are in 2015, several years after the mobile rush that was going to lay waste to all genres everywhere. Everyone's going to mobile! they all said. Desktops are doomed! Angry Birds is the future! Flee your traditional gaming studios; all the money is on phones and tablets! Some of us bemoaned a future in which our favorite MMORPG platform might be supplanted by tiny screens that fit into our jeans' butt pockets. Others embraced the idea of being able to escape to an MMORPG paradise while stuck on grimy public transport. And then...

Well, nothing. Pocket Legends and its spinoffs were a thing, true. There was Vendetta Online and Chaos Heroes and Order and Chaos Online, the last of which even had a subscription for a while. A lot of MMORPGs promised mobile integration, at the very least, though most of them haven't yet delivered. But most of the MMORPGs that actually work on mobile are small in either population or scope. They're not really what MMORPG fans would call a core or AAA MMORPG. We're mostly offered online ARPG, TCG, MOBA, ARG, and RTS titles.

All of this led our former mobile columnist to declare a year ago that mobile MMOs were at a standstill in the West. So what happened? Is it technically impossible or financial infeasible to run a "real" MMORPG on mobile? Is PC elitism partly to blame? Is the revolution yet to come? Where are all the mobile MMOs? Because I kinda want one.