The Escapist – Boutique MMOGs
Allen Varney has a nice article at The Escapist on Boutique MMOGs. In it, he points out that in aggregate, several of the smaller MMOs he lists have populations larger than that of WoW.
But I think it’s valuable to point out that most of WoW’s subs are in Asia. If you compare the market share just in North America and Europe, a lot of these “under the radar” games actually have a larger market share than WoW does.

Thanks for the plug, Raph. I also posted a companion blog entry on The Escapist Lounge, “Your Own MMOG?,” that briefly outlines the business and coding approaches needed for these low-budget games.
Varney put Gaia Online in the $3m budget cetegory? Hell, one person could throw that together in a month for $0m.
Yeah I know, nitpick. 🙂