Welcome back to MassivelyOP’s annual MMORPG awards for 2025!
Today’s award is for the MMO Story of the Year, which was awarded to the endless layoffs affecting the game industry and our genre lasy year. This isn’t an award based on popularity as measured by hits or comments, and it’s not meant for a single article; it’s an acknowledgement of an ongoing narrative or event of deep importance and significance for the genre during the year, something different from a surprise or trend. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!
And the MassivelyOP staff pick for MMO Story of the Year is…
The doom of Amazon Games
“So it turns out you really can’t just buy your way into the MMORPG industry and expect to automatically generate more money than everyone else in a few short years. Who knew? Oh, a lot of people knew? Including us? Yeah. Unfortunately, the short-sighted executives of Amazon who ruled over the game studios at Amazon Games lacked the patience for the hard work of actually being in the games industry, and so this year, egged on by the latest tech bubble, they pulled out of the MMORPG genre – really the whole industry, though New World and the new LOTR MMO were hit hardest – and left skeleton teams to keep New World itself (which had literally just launched another successful expansion!) online in maintenance mode for unclear reasons. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that Throne & Liberty and Lost Ark are (presumably) still under contract. Either way, it’s been painful for MMO fans and frustrating to know that Amazon’s corporate whims may continue to influence the rest of the industry. It’s certainly the biggest MMORPG story of the year.” -MOP’s Bree
That’s our take. What’s your pick?
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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner? Our team nominates and discusses candidates to (ideally) reach consensus on our whole slate of awards each year. The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January (here’s last year’s, along with historical winners for every category). Poll options are not exhaustive, so feel free to write in your picks if they weren’t nominated.