Despite all the 'WoW Killer' claims and headlines this year, it's now fairly obvious that WoW withstood every attack thrown at it.

Two huge titles were launched during 2008, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, and regardless of their massive following and established fan bases, their arrivals on the MMO scene didn't even register on WoW's subscription figures.

Massively has published graphs showing the performances of MMOs for the last 6 months, and WoW has managed to keep rising in every aspect, even though it's now over 4 years old. Age of Conan got off to a bad start, and its figures have continued to decline. Warhammer did well initially, but is now also in decline as players seem to be gravitating towards WoW as the graph below shows.

Looking at other graphs in the analysis though, you can see that other games have done quite well. LOTRO is on the up after its expansion Mines of Moria, and EVE Online is also growing. Guild Wars is continuing at a steady pace too.

It remains to be seen how well AoC and WAR do in the coming year. As LOTRO has proven, subscriptions can grow if the game can survive the first year or two.

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