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This is a selected list of massively multiplayer online first-person shooter games. MMOFPSs are large multi-user games that take place in perpetual online worlds with hundreds or thousands of other players.
| Title | Status | Subscription Model | Release Date | Close Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dust 514 | Ended | Free-to-play | May 14, 2013 | May 30, 2016 | |
| Face of Mankind | Ended | Free-to-play/Subscription | August 31, 2006 | September 3, 2015 | Went through various names, financial models, and publishers during its nine-year existence |
| Firefall | Ended | Free-to-play | September 2, 2011 | July 7, 2017 | |
| Global Agenda | Released | Free-to-play | February 1, 2010 | A hybrid between a multiplayer, hub-based shooter and a larger-scale persistent world online shooter (MMO). | |
| Hellgate: London | Ended | Free-to-play | October 31, 2007 | January 31, 2009 | "The game can be played in either third person perspective or first person perspective." "Hellgate: London can be played offline or online without a fee." |
| Huxley | Ended | May 3, 2010 | December 30, 2010 | ||
| MAG | Ended | Free-to-play | January 26, 2010 | January 28, 2014 | |
| Neocron | Released | Subscription/Free-to-play (June 2011) | September 9, 2002 | MMO with RPG and FPS elements. | |
| PlanetSide | Ended | Subscription | May 20, 2003 | July 1, 2016 | Launched with a subscription-based pay model. Went free-to-play on April 29, 2014 until server shutdown. |
| PlanetSide Arena | Ended | Free-to-play | September 19, 2019 | January 10, 2020 | Free-to-play spinoff of PlanetSide 2 featuring game modes like capture the flag and battle royale. Shut down due to low player counts. |
| PlanetSide 2 | Released | Free-to-play | November 20, 2012 | On January 23, 2015, PlanetSide 2 set the record for the most players online in a single FPS battle. [1] | |
| Tabula Rasa | Ended | Subscription | November 2, 2007 | February 28, 2009 | "It still was not an outright shooter and featured sticky targeting and dice rolling based on character stats underneath." |
| World War II Online | Released | Free-to-play | June 6, 2001 | Game is still online and playable, although the player base has significantly dwindled. The game is still providing content updates and developers are pushing towards a core engine update utilising Unreal (As at March 2022). |
MMOFPSs today use a wide range of business models, from completely free of charge (no strings attached) or advertise funded to various kinds of payment plans. This list uses the following terms.
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. Shareware is often offered as a download from a website. Shareware differs from freeware, which is fully-featured software distributed at no cost to the user but without source code being made available; and free and open-source software, in which the source code is freely available for anyone to inspect and alter.
Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) published and developed by Norwegian video game development company Funcom. Released in June 2001, the game was the first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, instancing, free trials, and in-game advertising. The game's ongoing storyline revolves around the fictional desert planet Rubi-Ka, wherein a valuable mineral known as Notum is found. Players assume the role of a new colonist to Rubi-Ka. With no specific objective to win Anarchy Online, the player advances the game through the improvement of a character's skills over time. After more than 20 years, Anarchy Online has become one of the oldest surviving games in the genre.
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and is now used by many businesses, websites and even pharmaceutical companies in partnership with governments.
A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. A number of micropayment systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. A second generation of micropayment systems emerged in the 2010s.
The Xbox network, formerly known and commonly referred to as Xbox LIVE, is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Gaming for the Xbox brand. It was first made available to the original Xbox console on November 15, 2002. An updated version of the service became available for the Xbox 360 console at the system's launch in November 2005, and a further enhanced version was released in 2013 with the Xbox One. This same version is also used with Xbox Series X and Series S. This service, in addition to a Microsoft account, is the account for Xbox ecosystem; accounts can store games and other content.
Free-to-play video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which requires a payment before using the game or service. It is also separate from freeware games, which are entirely costless. Free-to-play's model is sometimes derisively referred to as free-to-start due to not being entirely free. Free to play games have also been widely criticized as "pay-to-win"— that is, that players can generally pay to obtain competitive or power advantages over other players.
Paid content is content on the Internet – such as text, graphics, video and downloads – which is paid for. Paid content is usually copyrighted.
PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartphones, tablets, Blu-ray players and high-definition televisions. It succeeded Sony Entertainment Network in 2015 and this service is the account for PlayStation consoles, accounts can store games and other content.
In-game advertising (IGA) is advertising in electronic games. IGA differs from advergames, which refers to games specifically made to advertise a product. The IGA industry is large and growing.
ESPN Broadband is a business unit of the ESPN company - itself a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. This unit focuses on providing sports content to users over a high speed internet connection. It is divided into five areas: ESPN Motion, ESPN3, ESPN Online Games, IpTV and ESPN PPV. By providing content online this service is able to allow users to watch sports games and sports related content such as ESPN documentaries and the SportsCenter TV show. This is one of the ways in which new media and broadband internet are beginning to compete with the Television industry in general, changing from a force fed consumption model of entertainment, to one that allows user generated play lists, interactivity, and custom content.
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software. This business model has been used in the software industry since the 1980s. A subset of this model used by the video game industry is called free-to-play.
Microtransactions (mtx) refers to a business model where users can purchase in-game virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransactions are a staple of the mobile app market, they are also seen on PC software such as Valve's Steam digital distribution platform, as well as console gaming.
An online pass is a digital rights management system for restricting access to supplemental functionality in a product by using a single-use serial number. Online passes are primarily intended to hinder or discourage the second-hand purchase of a product, and to allow the producer of a product to still return profits from second-hand copies of the product.
Video game monetization is a type of process that a video game publisher can use to generate revenue from a video game product. The methods of monetization may vary between games, especially when they come from different genres or platforms, but they all serve the same purpose to return money to the game developers, copyright owners, and other stakeholders. As the monetization methods continue to diversify, they also affect the game design in a way that sometimes leads to criticism.
Buy-to-play (B2P) is a revenue model for video games where a game can be played after a one-time purchase, as opposed to a subscription model where the player must pay a subscription at regular intervals to continue having access to the game. Buy-to-play, while a form of premium games, generally apply to games where there is continued ongoing content or support from the developer or publisher well beyond the period of purchase, such as through maintenance of online servers or through the production of ongoing content and expansions, as often the case in massively multiplayer online games (MMO). This support can be monetized through additional microtransactions or through an ongoing subscription fee. Microtransactions are becoming evermore entwined with the buy-to-play revenue model as most recent games allow for some sort of additional purchase. For example, buy-to-play title Guild Wars 2 allows players to purchase additional in-game items with microtransactions, while Destiny 2 lets users purchase season passes for additional content.
In the video game industry, games as a service (GaaS) represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service. Games as a service are ways to monetize video games either after their initial sale, or to support a free-to-play model. Games released under the GaaS model typically receive a long or indefinite stream of monetized new content over time to encourage players to continue paying to support the game. This often leads to games that work under a GaaS model to be called "living games", "live games", or "live service games" since they continually change with these updates.