Despite PC being the core platform for MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), a number of titles in this genre still perform well on console. The average age of an MMO across PlayStation and Xbox consoles is five years, underlining just how difficult it is to successfully introduce a new MMO. Audiences for such titles are typically well-entrenched and well-established: It takes time to build a sustained audience.

Ampere Games - Analytics data indicates that the most-played genre across PlayStation and Xbox is First-Person Shooter (FPS). Just over 12% of monthly active users (MAUs) in April were seen playing FPS titles, with the Battle Royale and Soccer genres following close behind. MMORPGs, however, represented a tiny 0.4% share of total console MAUs in that month. For every one person playing an MMO, around 30 are playing an FPS game.

Despite the small size of the MMO player base, these gamers tend to be among the most engaged. Stickiness is essentially a measure of engagement which reflects the share of days in a month that the average player was seen playing. While Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) is only available on PlayStation, it is the second most-played MMORPG across PlayStation and Xbox consoles combined – behind Elder Scrolls Online – and maintains extremely high levels of stickiness, surpassing 30% in Q1 of this year.  This means that the average user was seen playing the game on around 10 days in each month. Meanwhile, popular titles from other genres tend to lag behind, with Modern Warfare II (inc. Warzone 2.0) struggling to breach 22% and Minecraft even less sticky, hovering around the 13% mark.

Given the pay-to-play business model of FFXIV, it is perhaps unsurprising that subscribers to the game tend to be highly active and engaged. However, higher levels of stickiness can be seen across the MMORPG genre as a whole, despite the inclusion of numerous free-to-play and buy-to-play titles. At 18%, the average MMORPG user was seen playing on around five and a half days in April, whereas the average FPS gamer played on fewer than three days across the month, around half that of the MMO players.