The biggest MMORPG on Steam is not The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, or New World, but MIR4: an online role-playing game that many play just to earn money. Now it reaches a new dimension: The developers allow trading of characters. The most expensive characters sell for cryptocurrency worth more than €100,000.
What is currently the biggest MMORPG on Steam?
- With 71,930 concurrent users, Mir4 is currently the biggest MMORPG
- New World has 62.70 users
- FF 14 stands at 30,760 users
- Black Desert has 18,602 users
- ESO brings 13,464 concurrent users (via steamdb)
It should be noted that Final Fantasy XIV, Black Desert, and ESO all have their own clients and run on consoles – so the Steam numbers do not represent “all players” who are playing the MMORPG at the same time.
Mir4 also has mobile versions and is playable in other ways. Recently, they celebrated one million concurrent players.
MIR4 – MMORPG focuses on “Pay-to-earn” and NFTs
What is the special twist of Mir4? The MMORPG MIR4 is not convincing due to great features, an exciting story, or a fantastic world. The special twist of the MMORPG is that it is a “Pay-to-earn” game. By playing, one can earn real money – albeit at a modest hourly wage.
Players can mine an ore in MIR4, smelt it, and exchange it for cryptocurrency, which they can then sell for real money.
The player numbers in MIR4 are evidently high because many play the game to “make money” – apparently, many bots are used for that.
Players can convert characters into NFTs, seal, and sell
This is now the latest gimmick: In a new update on November 21, the MMORPG introduced an NFT website for character trading:
- Players can convert a character into an NFT and trade it on a website. To do this, a character must first be “minted” as an NFT. The character must be over level 60 and have more than 100,000 in Power Score.
- If one wants to sell such an elite hero, they must “seal” them, making them unplayable for the creator of the character.
- Whoever buys such a sealed character acquires their achievements as well – the gold on the character remains with the seller.
What do the characters cost? A Lancer at level 104 was sold on December 22 for the equivalent of 127,000 €. A Sorcerer at level 105 was sold on December 21 for the same amount.
It should be noted that the characters are traded in the currency “WEMIX”, which fluctuates in price. Currently, WEMIX is at 11.12 US dollars.
For those who find this too much: The “recommended characters” on the website are already available for modest €12,000 to €50,000.
In MIR4, the NFT model seems to work significantly better than at Ubisoft:
Ubisoft introduces NFT microtransactions in Ghost Recon – competitors laugh at poor revenue
