Massively multiplayer games are games played by a massive number of players. Well, you asked. And ‘MMORPG’ stands for ‘massively multiplayer online roleplaying game’. If you’re wondering about the details, keep reading.

Modern PC games can be played offline (ie, without being connected to the internet, or a network) or online, or a mixture of both. An offline game is usually played by one person, so they’re often called single player games. Sometimes those offline games can also be played by multiple people at once, either on one PC or over a network, making them multiplayer games - but in most cases, multiplayer PC games are played over the internet.

You’ve probably already heard of some of these games - names like Quake III, Battlefield 1942, CounterStrike and Unreal Tournament might ring a bell. Those games are all first person shooters, although there are many other multiplayer internet games from strategy to cards. But in all of these games, there’s a limit to how many players can connect and play together at once.

In a massively multiplayer game, the number of people playing together increases dramatically. Hundreds or even thousands of people might be playing at the same time as you are.

We call these massively multiplayer games, although they’re also known as ‘MMOGs’ (massively multiplayer online games) and often ‘MMORPGs’ (deep breath - massively multiplayer online roleplaying games).

How do you pronounce that last one? With a lot of practice.

An ‘MMORPG’ is a specific type of massively multiplayer game, that allows you to play the role of a character which advances in power, usually through accumulating experience. Most MMORPGs charge a regular monthly fee to play, because of the overheads and costs involved with running them.

An MMORPG shares a lot of characteristics with traditional roleplaying games, which brings us to our next question.