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GigaOm has compiled a list of the top ten MMOs (massively multiplayer online worlds) and it's not in the order most would expect.
Second Life, the virtual world operated by Linden Research that is backed by Benchmark Capital, comes in at the bottom of the list. But, that's okay for Benchmark, since the venture capital firm also counts the second and sixth most popular virtual worlds as investments.
1. World of Warcraft - owned by Vivendi
2. Habbo Hotel - Operated by Finland's Sulake Corp. and backed by Benchmark Capital, 3i Group and Elisa Group
3. RuneScape - Operated by Jagex in the U.K.
4. Club Penguin - Bootstrapped in Canada. Whatever happened to that $450 million Sony sale?
5. Webkinz - Owned by Ganz, a wholesale gift company in Canada. That makes five of the top five based outside the U.S.
6. Gaia Online - Silicon Valley startup backed by Benchmark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and DAG Ventures
7. Guild Wars - owned by South Korea's NCSoft Corp
8. Puzzle Pirates - owned by UbiSoft
9. Lineage I/II - owned by NCSoft Corp
10. Second Life - Operated by Linden Research and funded by Globespan Capital Partners, Benchmark Capital, Catamount Ventures and the Omidyar Network
For more on VCs in virtual worlds, see:
GigaOm
Red Herring
Tags: benchmark+capital, virtual+worlds, VIV, 036570, UBI, vc, venture+capital
Not for nothing, but none of the links you have here show more than 7 worlds. Where are the stats for the other 3 coming from?
Two quick corrections...
1) puzzle pirates is not owned by Ubisoft. They had a publishing deal but the property is owned and operated by Three Rings. A VC backed startup out of SF
2) These are really, really, wrong. See the follow-up comments at GigaOM.
This is a good compilation of the leading companies in the space. There's a Virtual Goods Summit at Stanford on June 22nd which will have a number of these companies presenting on stage. For more info, check out the conference website -- http://www.vgsummit.com.