MMOABC – A rare free MMO service
Online gaming is huge. But are there Southern California startups that actually have a presence in the ever so competitive online gaming space? So far the only one that I’ve heard buzz about has been GirlGamer. I’m sure there are more but at last month’s Digital LA Drinks event, we ran into a company called MMOABC that found has some really good traction in the one of the online gaming space called MMO. MMO stands for massively multiplayer online game. We caught up with CEO/Founder Andy Tong and asked him to tell us more about his company. The great thing about MMOABC is that they offer their service for free while most MMOs charge their online game subscriptions with a monthly subscription fee. MMOABC generate revenue from their hosting services. In addition to allowing users to play games for free, they also offer hosting and publishing features for game developers. MMOABC is about a year old and has already raised about 500k in Angel Round funding.
Here’s a list of the Top 10 MMOs based on popularity so you can see what the landscape looks like in the game space.
1. World of Warcraft, released 2004 – 8.5 million subscribers.
2. Habbo Hotel, released 2000 – 7.5 million active users.
3. RuneScape, released 2001 – 5 million active users.
4. Club Penguin, released 2006 – 4 million active users.
5. Webkinz, released 2005 – 3.8 million active users.
6. Gaia Online, released 2003 – 2 million active users.
7. Guild Wars, released 2005 – 2 million active users.
8. Puzzle Pirates, released 2003 – 1.5 million active users**.
9. Lineage I/II, released 1998 – 1 million subscribers.
10. Second Life, released 2003 – 500,000 active users.
(Source: GigaOm)
MMOABC may not be on this list yet, but comparing data from Compete, Quantcast and Alexa it appears that they have about 50-100k visitors a month. Their traffic is on the uptrend. However, as a local Southern California company, it’ll be interesting to see if MMOABC can sustain the trend as MMOs since it is really a competitive market. But then again, so is any online market nowadays. :) Check out the interview with Andy Tong here.
