When a new MMO launches, everyone turns and looks at the previous Big Game to see how badly it’s bleeding. After all, massively multiplayer games are all consuming lifestyle games, right? People only pay for one. Therefore, subscription MMOs are playing a zero sum game – if Carebears Online has fifty subscribers, Fluffy Bunnies Online has fifty fewer than they did before the Carebears launched.

Bzzt! Wrong. But how wrong? We took a look to see what percentage of the GamerDNA population regularly plays more than one MMO – and what those MMOs might be.

Today’s sample set is taken from GamerDNA users who have Xfire turned on. We also picked a window in time that includes days AFTER Warhammer Online hit its first thirty day window, to be sure we were picking up actual subscribers as opposed to people still on their free trial. Finally, our sample only considered people playing mainstream, subscription MMOs – to be specific, we included the following titles: WOW, WAR, LOTRO, EVE, AOC, FFIX, COH/V, TR, EQ, EQ2. Anecdotally, it seems like there’s a substantial group that plays a subscription MMO as well as a free/microtransaction title, but what we’re looking at here is not how much time someone is willing to sink in, but how much money.

First, let’s look at the big picture. 76% only play one title. That the majority can only handle one alternate reality is not the surprise. The surprise is that 19% play two. The shock is that 4% play three. (There are people who have in fact logged into four, and even five MMOs in the past few weeks – but fortunately, they do not compose a statistically significant pool.)

For people playing one game, what are they playing right this second?

Sorry, channeling the Count there – it’s Halloween, after all. Anyway. Among GamerDNA/Xfire users, WOW is still the big dog, with WAR barking at its heels. LOTRO takes a respectable third, but the rest are all far back in the pack.

Okay, so, what are those two fisting fellows playing? I once heard a friend described as a monkey, when it came to boyfriends – she wouldn’t let go of one branch until she had a firm grip on the next one. Are players like monkeys, when it comes on online subscriptions?

Well, the two big players are still the top two. But now WAR just barely edges out WOW, and everyone else has a more respectable share. Still, the probability of these twofers being WOW/WAR subscribers is still pretty good. But you can see where this is going:

Yep. It would seem that people who have the extra money to burn on subs are willing to keep older, more niche titles in their rotation. Remember, we’re not just measuring payment. In fact, we’re just assuming these people are paying. The people on this three game pie have recently logged into each of their games.

Let’s take the top five games in our sample and take a look at the data from a different angle.

Here’s what that one means. Of all the people who listed WOW in our sample, 64% only logged into WOW. 27% logged into WOW and one other game. And 9% logged into WOW and two other games. The split with WAR was 63/30/7. Age of Conan was more likely to be played when the particular customer also played another game, as opposed to it being the "one true love."

From this, I take away that WAR needs to stay on their “A” game, because there is a substantial number of players who aren’t letting go of their old, comfortable branch just yet.

And as with many of our snapshots, we’re going to run this again. I’m especially curious to see the results after Lich King and Moria drop next month.  Well, probably not as curious as Blizzard and Turbine are.

What do you think is going to happen?