Maid Marian: The MMOG Shop You Never Heard Of

You may not have heard of Maid Marian Entertainment, but that doesn't mean it's not a wildly successful MMOG studio.

Adobe Showcase has just published a case study about the boutique MMOGs developed by Gene Enrody at his one man studio, Maid Marian Entertainment.

Independent game developer Gene Endrody, a likely inspiration to solo programmers everywhere, figuratively and literally quit his day job and, against all odds, hit the jackpot in the massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG) space. ... MaidMarian.com attracts over 1.3 million unique visitors a month with up to 4,000 simultaneous players at a time logged into the multiplayer games.

Endrody made Maid Marian's most popular game, Sherwood Dungeon, without any assistance. Using Maya, Photoshop and Director, he created a free MMOG, which runs on four servers and delivers 10 million ad impressions a month. Best of all, there's no client download, no complicated configuration settings, just instant access to the game.

Allen Varney mentioned Endrody and Maid Marian in his article "Boutique MMOGs" in The Escapist issue 75 (also check out Allen's companion The Escapist Daily post, "Your own MMOG?").

Maid Marian is a stellar example of the boutique approach to development. Endrody started small, contained costs, launched without a huge media fanfare and constantly makes small improvements and adjustments to the game over time. It's highly likely we will see more and more independent studios taking this approach over the coming years.