Remember the hype about Aion? It turns out this was one of the most widely anticipated games like WoW , but it did not live up to its hype. Traffic to aiononline.com has dropped to 1/5 of its initial opening day. The game continues to lose traffic, while Warcraft still maintains the largest player base of all time, next to Runescape. Runescape certainly cannot be compared to a game of caliber like WoW but it still remains the largest free online RPG, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. I’m sure Guinness had to take an in depth look into the player numbers to come to the conclusion. I still think this number is slightly skewed because the number of players registered has little comparison to the number of actual daily players. Runescape, at one time, was full of auto generating bots, multiplying ten fold in a short period of time. We believe this was the main contribution to their player base.
So why did Aion flop? We can never be certain, however it could have to do with the fact that the entire game does not offer much in comparison to many other games like WoW. Their PVP system is great but apparently players and MMORPG fans don’t find it THAT special, since the game ha not really taken off. Perhaps a flop is a bit harsh of a statement, but it’s certainly not a stunning success in the United States.