_Free Realms _ Hits 20M Registered Users

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that its kid-friendly PC and PS3 MMO Free Realms has registered over 20 million players since launching in April 2009. Registration growth for the free-to-play online title has slowed since it attracted its first 2 million registrations within a month of launch and reached the 10 million player milestone as it approached its first birthday last April. Over 17 million users had signed up for the game by the time it launched on PS3 in March, just before the much-publicized PSN outage prevented new players from playing on the system. SOE did not discuss how many of those registered players were still actively playing the game. "This benchmark is an honor and a true testament of SOE's success with free-to-play games," SOE president John Smedley said in a statement. "Free Realms delivers a truly captivating, quality gameplay experience that keeps our community engaged and continues to attract new players every day." SOE lost Free Realms creative director Laralyn McWilliams to John Romero's social gaming studio Loot Drop earlier this year. McWilliams has since moved on to Facebook game-show adaptation studio iWin.