MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: MMO Studio of the Year

December 20, 2024 11:00 AM

Welcome back to Massively Overpowered’s formal end-of-the-year awards!

Today’s award is for the MMO Studio of the Year, which was awarded to Standing Stone Games last year. We asked our writers to consider all MMO studios as well as other online games studios we cover and judge the studios on what they did within the MMO genre this year specifically. 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 the MMO Studio of 2024 is…

NCSOFT

Brianna Royce: NCsoft, Stormhaven, Elder Game, SSG, Daybreak (for bringing back Fippyfest). Best studio turned out to be a harder one to decide this year as we’ve got a lot of nice teams to pick from. But I’ve been saying since 2019 that the year NCsoft finally makes City of Heroes Homecoming official is the year when it’s the best studio. And now here we are, and we’re making good on that. The company made a huge mistake closing down Paragon and CoH in 2012. But it rectified that error when it let the rogue servers run for nearly five years without a whole lot of interference, though I’m sure it must have chafed. For the company to finally grant an official license in 2024 isn’t just great for City of Heroes fans; it’s good for the whole genre, and it’s the highest-profile example we now have of a legal and legitimate way to keep MMORPGs online after a sunset. It can be done, clearly – and now MMORPG players can keep demanding it from other corners. I know it wasn’t a great year for NCsoft otherwise, given the chaos with the company’s Korean corporate problems, but for this? Good show, NCsoft.

Carlo Lacsina: ArenaNet

Chris Neal: NCsoft, ArenaNet, Stormhaven. As you’ll note in other replies, this award is going to NCsoft purely for one reason: It gave City of Heroes Homecoming the official license, making it from rogue server to a functioning, fun, infinitely playable, and – most importantly – preserved MMORPG. That absolutely is meritorious.

Eliot Lefebvre: Broadsword and NCsoft/the Homecoming team. The fact that NCsoft actually made a deal to bring CoH back? Like, they actually did it? That’s a redemption arc right there, one that I’ve been waiting for since I protested the closure back in 2012.

Justin Olivetti: Blizzard. Sure, it’s the big dog, but it really deserved it for all of its work on World of Warcraft this year. Not only did the studio laid out a full year of content for retail and made it all happen, not only did it continue to invest into WoW Classic, not only did it finally announce housing and put together a rather impressive livestream showcase, not only did it launch a great expansion, but it also proved far more willing this year to listen to fans and experiment with things like Pandaria Remix, Plunderstorm, and Season of Discovery.

NCsoft took our award for MMO Studio of the Year. What’s your pick?

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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. 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. Reader poll options include all studios nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.