Free Realms claims 10m accounts

By Oli Welsh Published 6 April, 2010

SOE's free MMO celebrates anniversary.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that its free-to-play kids' MMO, Free Realms, has surpassed 10 million registered players.

The milestone comes as the game gears up to celebrate one year in operation - it was launched on 28th April 2009.

"Reaching 10 million registered players on the eve of Free Realms' first birthday is an incredibly exciting event for SOE and our passionate online community," said SOE president John Smedley.

"Millions of gamers have confirmed that the genre we pioneered over 11 years ago with the original EverQuest continues to evolve and expand to include new styles of gameplay that reach a wider audience than ever before."

From mid-April, in-game live events and content additions, including combat mini-games and quests, will appear to mark Free Realms' first birthday.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • George-Roper #1 2 years ago

    "Millions of gamers have confirmed that the genre we pioneered over 11 years ago with the original EverQuest continues to evolve and expand to include new styles of gameplay that reach a wider audience than ever before."

    In other words, SOE have no hope of ever reclaiming their 'hardcore' MMO crown and instead are now going for the kiddies. Good business sense, no doubt but little to do with their original, pioneering genre.

    Personally, I have no intention of buying into a SOE game ever again. Live Gamer has turned the milk very, very sour. Any game that gives the 'haves' a better advantage over the 'have nots', when everyone should be on a level playing field, will not be seeing a purchase from me.

  • DFawkes #2 2 years ago

    I very much enjoy Free Realms. It's quite casual, and I've never felt like I needed to pay to get the most out of it. some of the content updates have been pretty good too, like Football, to try and keep people interested.

    Still curious to see how it does on PS3, if indeed they're still planning to do it.

  • ZuluHero #3 2 years ago

    I still dip in and out. While i love it for being easy to play and fun, it's a very quiet world given its 10m accounts.

  • n30n666 #4 2 years ago

    10,000,000 accounts 10,000 players.

  • Ryboy #5 2 years ago

    10,000,000 registered accounts.
    6,812,800,000 people playing something else.

  • NGCes26294BIV #6 2 years ago

    As has alread been stated. 10m accounts, NOT active players.

    They're also on Miniclip, which is where I suspect most of their accounts come from.

  • nuanimal #7 2 years ago

    Who's going neg-happy?

  • skp #8 2 years ago

    I really did enjoy Free Realms, but I went back to play it last week and I was both impressed and dismayed by how things have changed.

    After logging in and loading, you now get two pop-ups that try and get you to buy items with Station Cash (which you normally pay for) and advertise what items you're missing by not being a member. Now, when you complete a dungeon they force in your face that if you were a member you would have won these (better) extra items from it. IMHO, too much of the game interface now is overtly trying to lure players into paying more cash while high-lighting that you actually get worse (and less) rewards from completing the same tasks as a free player. If the tasks were different or more difficult as a member, then I could agree the rewards should be better.

    Then, while playing I noticed the spread of mounts and pets in the game. I saw someone riding a fantasical black horse with fire-effect red mane and I was wowed - until seconds later I wandered onto a busy peer and discovered three other players with the same identikit black firey-mane horses. It just felt like they were cheapened and not worth getting, because they must have been bought with real money rather than being rare rewards for players who had won them from playing for a long time. Perhaps they were, I don't know, but the proliferation of dinosaur pets and mounts made the game feel like a consumer shop rather than a game you earn the more radical rewards from winning things by completing hard tasks.

    These changes have put me off the game and I've unistalled it. Just too commercialised now and no reason (or possibility) to craft stuff for other players' wants; because there's vastly better, more varied items to just buy with real money. It's too much like pick-what-you-want virtual shopping rather than actually winning things from playing the game.
    Edited by 5 at 06/04/10 @ 16:36