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Project Massive's Latest Findings
The ongoing study into the habits of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, Project Massive, has released their latest findings. Next Generation has a breakdown on what the numbers mean with help from the researchers. As always, they have some interesting things to say. From the article: "Saying that developers who are operating a monthly (and not hourly) subscription service have a financial interest in compelling people to spend 40-80 hours a week playing their game ignores the market realities of bandwidth, customer service, and content creation. I had the tools at my disposal to shed some light on this issue and the fact that I have no corporate backing or economic interest in the outcome puts me in a good position to tell the truths that the data reveal." If you're a MMOG player, you can participate in the latest wave of questions.
This is just a survey. The numbers provided under the "what MMOG are you playing most" question only tell you the demographics of the survey sample, NOT the total online population.
The best breakdown of total active subscribers can be found here.
The fact that well over 50% of the respondants were playing primarily World of Warcraft tells you more about the results of the other questions. For instance, obviously you could not have been playing World of Warcraft for longer than 12 months, which is why the results of that question reveal a huge dropoff after that. That does not mean most people play an online game for under a year before changing, simply that the one they're playing now hasn't been around for longer than that.