NPD: Turbine's DDO is the third most played MMO

NPD has released its annual survey results for online gaming, and according to the 19K people who participated in it, DDO Unlimited was the third most played MMO out there.

World of Warcraft still holds the number one spot, with Runescape still in second, but thanks to the free-to-play model implemented in DDO last fall, the third place title knocked Guild Wars out of the spot it held for two years.

Wow players make up 30 percent of MMO players, Runescape 10 percent, and DDO 7 percent of those surveyed.

The survey also found that WoW players are looking at different games. This year, 13 percent of former players went to Runescape, 11 percent to DDO, and 9 percent to Guild Wars.

It was also revealed that the standard subscription model is less popular now and days. During 2008, monthly subscriptions the preference of 30 percent of players surveyed, but that number dropped to 18 percent this year. The free-to-play and microtransactions method is climbing in popularity,  but the current favorite sub model is the lifetime subscription, of course, at 22 percent.

Females seem to be holding steady as MMO players at 32 percent, yet male players still dominate the genre at 68 percent. The average age of the MMO player was also found to be between 25-34 years of age, and each player spent, on average, 20 or more hours a week playing online.

All interesting stuff, there.

You can read the full thing over on Massively.