And you thought they wouldn't go far. Now at three, Wizet's MapleStory is still growing strong at 60 million registered users worldwide, and in celebration of the fact, Nexon's announced that three special events to run in this month toward June. Plenty of giveaways have been prepped, and the one of the delights you can bag is a whole DELL XPS computer! More at the full story.

While the Eastern hemisphere has an uncontested foothold in the online gaming sector, Electronic Arts' director of E-commerce, John Burns, believes that online gaming in the Western front will also rise to the occasion. He claimed that in three years time, the world's online gamers could be spending up to GB£ 2.18 billion (US$ 4.4 billion) every year.

 

At a two-day conference held by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe, Burns spoke on the potential growth spurt that the online games industry would experience in the coming years. "Not only is gaming a significant industry in size now but online gaming is an important step for us as an industry," said Burns, being careful to point out that even the rise of female online gamers cannot be barred by the concept of "hard-core" games.

"It is very broad and widespread. There are many people playing online games of all ages, male and female," he added. Burns figured that around 100 million online gamers are spread across the world and its highly likely that the number would increase steadily in the coming years.

If the European situation is any indication, Burns pointed out that broadband penetration in the region has grown from 35% since 2006. He predicts that in about five years' time, it could rise past 45%. "Household penetration of broadband is also exponential - and we are looking at that growing in Europe from 40 per cent now to over 60 per cent in 2012," he concluded.

Taiwan, China, and South Korea have enjoyed an early boost in the MMORPG market, with millions of gamers and game companies contributing to its growth. The player base in some games, like the 60 million user base in Wizet's MapleStory, inflated due to the availability of affordable broadband connections and the spread of Internet cafes.

Burns noted that the sense of community is driving gamers to the online front, where interaction with other human beings through a virtual world entices both the experience and the imagination. "Online games expand your world. And players can replicate in a larger [online] world what they have in the off-line world," he said.

It's a growing pain that some classes just seem to be laid out for a single gender, but they still remain that way anyhow. Blizzard's World of Warcraft may be a newcomer to the MMORPG scene - and a successful one at that - but it isn't immune to the MMO issues regarding sexism, no matter how light it may be ("over-generalization" if you would like to put it softly) be.

 

Irelance of Moonrunner may consider himself/herself as a sexist for assuming healers to be female gamers and warriors to be male gamers, but then so do millions of other people in numerous other MMOs in the world to date. Is it so impossible to accept that maybe women can handle well as a brawny melee fighter and some men feel more helpful as a supporter of a great party of players?

Some games such as Wizet's MapleStory and Aeonsoft's Flyff (Fly for Fun) managed to effectively blur that line, with many male gamers coming out as clerics or supportive classes - and effective ones at that. So skillful the female gamers became in melee and tanking, that rogues and the favorite warrior classes appear equally populated with women.

Yes, some games may be more openly sexist than they should be, though they don't attempt to be purposely. Games such as Gravity's ROSE Online Evolution may be a tough one to crack, especially if you've had nightmares after watching a man clad in the controversial Mana Steam gear pass you by.

 

It may not seem right that a male, or even a male character for the most part, can't become part of a particular class without passing off as a woman at their highest level, but it goes for ROSE and it may not stop there. Should healers be generalized as a female class and warriors accepted as a male-only class? That dear readers is left for you to discuss.

 

Xfire has got a whole lot of other interesting statistics for the month of March this year, and it looks like plenty will be head-turners for the PC gamers and avid MMO gamers alike. During Xstatic's official launch, it was made aware that the Xfire community, numbering some 6 million gamers around the world, would be statistically tracked for every game they play.

And for the month of March, it seems that the top 20 games played be Xfire community members are topped yet again by Blizzard Entertainment's cash machine World of Warcraft. Also noticeable in the top 20 games list is the appearance of Electronic Arts' recently released Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars for the PC, which sits at one spot away from the Top 10.

Top on the MMO list is (tada?) World of Warcraft with NCSoft's Guild Wars tailing behind. Free-to-play MMO giants JoyMax Co.'s SilkRoad Online and Nexon's (and Wizet's) MapleStory pick up the lower two of three spots on the top five list. Scandalous Eve Online enjoys a comfortable seat at the fifth spot.

Top of the FPS list is Counter-Strike: Source, Valve Software's next-generation anti-terrorism shooter. Activision's Call of Duty 2 in multiplayer mode fills the second spot, and Electronic Arts' Battlefield 2 takes on third. Valve manages to slip another CS title with Counter-Strike 1.6 at the fourth spot, leaving id Software's Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory to bar Battlefield 2142 from entering the top five.

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne peaks off the top 10 strategy games, with Electronic Arts' Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars stealing second spot. Big news: contending RTS titan Supreme Commander is tailing behind C&C3 with a staggering 20,000 player gap, although February saw THQ and Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander securely at second.

Pretty Korean girls jumping up and down dressed in schoolgirl uniforms.

If that sentence alone wasn't enough to grab your attention and perk your ears up, then I honestly don't know what will. But believe it or not, this "School Girl" trailer is actually for the upcoming Wizet-developed DS game called Maple Story. And as reported earlier, Maple Story will be the very first MMORPG for the DS (aside from Pokemon, that is).

Very little is known about this game, apart from the factoid that it'll be a side-scrolling RPG with an avatar code system. And although the game looks Japanese-y (or more precisely, Korean-ish), DS users from all over the globe need not worry because the game will also be released in Australia, Japan, US, and Europe sometime this November. So while we wait for more game details to surface, why don't ya check out this vid and see what you'll make of it, eh?