We at MeinMMO are often asked why we don’t cover Final Fantasy XIV more extensively with articles. After all, the MMORPG belongs at least in the top 3 in the world and is mainly competing with WoW for the crown. However, if you only look at Germany, Final Fantasy is in a very tight battle with ESO, GW2 and Lost Ark and is pushed to 3rd or even 4th place.
What is the interest in the MMORPGs like? This is always a bit difficult to say, as almost no company shares concrete player numbers. However, certain trends can be observed:
- Final Fantasy XIV, for example, experienced a hype thanks to streamers like Asmongold, who switched from WoW to the MMORPG in the summer of 2021. In December, the new expansion Endwalker was released, which also caused a large influx of players.
- WoW, on the other hand, recently experienced a low because the content gaps in Shadowlands were quite long and even a patch was missing compared to previous expansions. The MMORPG experienced a bit of hype with the announcement of the new expansion Dragonflight.
- Lost Ark, in turn, experienced a release hype in the West, which caused interest to soar.
If you look at Google Trends, you can see exactly these elements reflected. Google Trends evaluates search behavior, puts it in context with other data, and estimates an overall interest from it.
In a global comparison, it is clear: WoW and Final Fantasy XIV are competing for the top spot, the hype around Lost Ark is slowly fading, and Guild Wars 2 (blue bar) plays hardly any role.
German Players Love ESO and Guild Wars 2
What are the numbers for Germany like? In Germany, WoW dominates. The other MMORPGs are far behind. But aside from 1st place, the ranking is really exciting. In the last 12 months, for example, 2nd place clearly goes to Lost Ark. We’ve also hidden Lost Ark’s bar in the first image because it disrupts the exciting three-way battle behind it.
In 3rd place is Final Fantasy XIV, in 4th place ESO, and in 5th place Guild Wars 2. But there are some peculiarities:
- At the release of the End of Dragons expansion, Guild Wars 2 even held 1st place for almost 30 days among the three mentioned games. Worldwide, it didn’t even come close to ESO.
- If you look at the last 30 days, ESO holds the first place in this three-way fight. The reason for that is the release of the latest expansion High Isle at the beginning of June.
- Even Lost Ark is entwined in a tight four-way struggle in the last 30 days.
Also curious is: Guild Wars 2 has the largest interest worldwide in Slovenia, followed by Germany. Germans clearly prefer GW2 more than, for example, Americans or Brits. This was also confirmed to us by an employee from the developer ArenaNet, whom we met at gamescom in 2018. Germany and France are important for the MMORPG, even together they are more important than the USA, it was said.
How reliable is Google Trends? Trends derive their values from search queries on Google and, of course, do not show player numbers. Nevertheless, the tool is useful for our work to check interest in games.
So far, the numbers from the tool have always coincided with our experiences.
Classic Fantasy Beats JRPG in Germany
What causes the difference in popularity? Final Fantasy XIV is a hit in Japan. No other MMORPG comes close to these numbers. Also in the USA, Final Fantasy is now slightly more popular than WoW.
However, in Germany, the game from Japan is not so well received. Possible explanations are:
- Games like ESO and Guild Wars 2 are still relatively closely oriented towards our world, even if one encounters magic, dragons and monsters. Both also offer a mode where one besieges and conquers castles.
- German players, on the other hand, have a fondness for medieval games. No wonder titles like Gothic, Skyrim or strategy games like The Settlers are so popular here.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, it gets more colorful and eccentric. Rabbits sometimes take over a Twitter account, one meets cat-girls or players develop an unhealthy relationship with “Mommy”. The entire structure of the world and the storytelling style are also very different from the other two titles.
- Some German players find this too much. They prefer a more subdued experience. Time and again we read in the comments that our readers are trying to like FFXIV, but the game world simply does not match what they expect.
That Germans prefer classic MMORPGs is something we also experience repeatedly in discussions around gender lock and races or classes that are considered too childish. While, for example, the new classes Painter and Aeromancer are celebrated in the Korean community of Lost Ark, we often read comments like from Aldalindo:
This gender lock is simply not up to date and now even the lollipop lane, really? Well, the Koreans probably love it… but for me, the game is heading in the wrong direction.
This criticism has been raised for almost every MMORPG that has come to us from Asia, including recently Astellia and Elyon. This genre of games certainly has its followers here, but not in numbers as great as in Japan or Korea.
What is your attitude towards MMORPGs? Do you prefer Guild Wars 2 or ESO or are you team Final Fantasy XIV? Should the game world be more classic for you or can it also be a little more unusual? Feel free to write it in the comments.
Where the largest MMORPGs currently rank is shown in our tier list:
Where do the 50 largest MMORPGs currently stand? The tier list 2022
