MMO 98

About

MMO 98 is a single player strategy game. It was developed by BiteMe Games and was released on April 1, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

A short incremental game about running an MMO games studio, upgrading your server infrastructure and expanding your audience to all over the world, all from your oldschool desktop. Expand your game's infrastructureUse your game's earnings to reinvest into your game's infrastructure to support the ever increasing playerbase. Manage your global capacityExpand your servers globally, dealing with…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

72%Audience ScoreBased on 355 reviews

gameplay32 positive mentions

grinding9 negative mentions

Strong nostalgic aesthetic and presentation inspired by Windows 98, delivering a charming and cohesive visual and auditory experience.
Engaging and satisfying early to mid-game incremental gameplay loop with a variety of upgrades, minigames like Minesweeper, and a cute virtual assistant.
Well optimized and accessible game suitable for short, casual play sessions that many players found relaxing and fun, with responsive developers active in community communication.

Limited content and short gameplay duration, often completing the game within a few hours with little to no additional meaningful progression thereafter.
Repetitive and shallow mechanics, with many upgrades and systems feeling redundant or having minimal impact on gameplay, leading to early loss of player engagement.
Poor balance and pacing in later stages, including an unfulfilling prestige system, tedious endgame grinding, and features like the auction house lacking depth and usefulness.

gameplay
111 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
66%
5%
The gameplay offers a nostalgic, mildly addictive incremental management loop with simple mechanics and a retro aesthetic, but it suffers from repetitiveness, shallow upgrades, and limited content that leads to a short overall experience. While some players find the progression and loop satisfying, many highlight a lack of meaningful impact from upgrades, slow pacing, and a repetitive late game that lacks depth or new mechanics beyond early stages. The game shows promise with its theme and interface, yet the gameplay ultimately feels grindy, unvaried, and underdeveloped, leaving little incentive for extended play.
- “The gameplay itself is quite addictive, but the game has enough content only for about 4-6 hours of gameplay.”
- “The core gameplay loop is straightforward but initially quite satisfying.”
- “Really well polished, fun gameplay loop, and many upgrades to keep you hooked.”
- “To recap, (in my opinion) this game is filled with extremely bad design decisions, useless mechanics, useless numbers, useless upgrades, and overall boring and tedious gameplay.”
- “You run out of new mechanics about one third of the way through the game and the rest of it is just a slog that's lacking in automation.”
- “The progression curve eventually flattens, and the gameplay loop starts to feel repetitive. Upgrades become more about incremental efficiency gains rather than meaningful new mechanics, and the sense of discovery diminishes.”
graphics
47 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
51%
6%
The graphics are widely praised for their charming, nostalgic Windows 98-inspired aesthetic, consistent design, and engaging retro interface, which form the main appeal of the game. While some minor readability issues are noted, the visuals effectively capture the 90s PC vibe and are considered the highlight that sets the game apart. However, the strong visual presentation contrasts with more mixed opinions on gameplay depth and content.
- “The graphics and overall visual design are extremely charming.”
- “I absolutely love the nostalgic aesthetic; it reminds me of being a kid messing around on Windows 98.”
- “The retro aesthetic, combined with subtle humor and references to MMO culture, gives it charm that goes beyond its mechanics.”
- “In short: game underdelivers in Windows 98 aesthetic and as an incremental game.”
- “Honestly, other than aesthetic, there are better incremental games that are available for free.”
- “The aesthetic is classy, but there are only a few little toys to play with (including a functional game of Minesweeper that's quite barebones even by Minesweeper standards) while waiting for numbers to go up.”
music
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
40%
The music is widely praised for its relaxing, ambient, and nostalgic qualities, often enhancing the game's chill and classic Windows 98-inspired aesthetic. Many players find the soundtrack enjoyable enough to listen to outside the game, making it a standout aspect even if the gameplay receives mixed opinions.
- “Music and visuals really take me back, and for the price, this is an awesome game to relax with.”
- “I got the OST pack too and enjoy it in my work music rotation.”
- “The game has a beautifully crafted Win98-adjacent theme; the soundtracks are fitting and relaxing.”
grinding
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The grinding in this game is widely regarded as tedious and slow, with repetitive tasks and minimal rewards leading to a monotonous experience. Frequent restarts and constant clicking make progression feel like a chore rather than enjoyable gameplay, especially during multiple playthroughs or achievement hunts. While some improvements are underway, the overall grind remains a significant drawback.
- “The game starts off very slow and very grindy, and you get basically no reward for anything you do with minimal gameplay changes.”
- “Even if you do everything right, the most amount of data you can get each ascension is about 45 to 50, and pushing past that is stupidly slow, forcing you to restart, click a ton over and over again, just to get back to where you were, with almost no difficulty, and then grinding out the 50 more units of data.”
- “If you do another playthrough to get all the achievements, it makes the problems stand out a lot more and just feels tedious rather than fun.”
story
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
12%
38%
The story in this incremental game offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at running an MMO, focusing on corporate and development challenges rather than traditional storytelling. However, it lacks depth, compelling narrative, or engaging dialogue, with much of the indirect storytelling feeling repetitive and uninspired. Overall, the game presents an interesting concept of rising success leading to corporate decline, but this is delivered in a subtle and somewhat underwhelming manner.
- “Cool little incremental game, more of behind the scenes on running an MMO rather than creating quests or art styles which is a nice twist.”
- “Mmo98: The game where you start as a humble indie developer who strikes gold in relevancy, popularity, and player engagement—only to let it all go to your head, lose the plot entirely, and slowly reshape yourself into a hollow and soulless corporate machine that serves shareholder interests rather than the people who made you successful in the first place.”
- “I found myself just wanting to revisit Game Dev Story.”
- “There's absolutely no story, lore, secrets, or fun interactions here.”
- “The game starts engaging but turns into a corporate horror story with battle passes and quarterly season updates.”
- “The game begins with humble indie success but loses the plot completely, becoming a soulless corporate machine serving shareholders instead of the players who made it successful.”
replayability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
17%
50%
The game offers limited replayability, providing a single enjoyable experience but lacking depth or variety to encourage frequent returns. While some appreciate it as a casual time-killer similar to titles like "Papers, Please," most find little incentive for multiple playthroughs. Overall, replay value is modest and not a strong feature of the game.
- “No replay value, so adjust your expectations to a good but lone run.”
- “There were some major pacing changes, but not much replayability yet. It's a fun way to kill a few hours for a few bucks, but I may return to it only every once in a while.”
- “There's no replayability to it.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's lightweight design ensures smooth performance on most systems, enhancing accessibility, but recent updates like the irreversible 4K texture pack severely impact performance, especially for budget gamers. Additionally, some performance upgrades arrive too late to be useful, indicating inconsistent optimization efforts.
- “Its lightweight design and minimal system requirements further add to its accessibility, ensuring that it runs smoothly on almost any setup.”
- “The interface, styled after an old operating system, enhances this feeling by making every action—from clicking menus to monitoring performance—feel like part of a cohesive simulation rather than a detached idle mechanic.”
- “None of the performance prestige upgrades seem to have any use as they are obtained long after the problems they address are no longer relevant; you'll unlock upgrades to abilities you haven't unlocked yet.”
- “None of the performance prestige upgrades seem to have any use as they are acquired long after the issues they address are no longer relevant; you'll unlock upgrades to abilities you haven't unlocked yet.”
- “Performance drops.”
- “Optimization is a distant memory.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor is characterized by a subtle, retro-inspired wit that enriches its simple mechanics with personality and charm, particularly through MMO culture references. The localization of its text-based jokes is appreciated, making its humor accessible and enjoyable. Additionally, standout comedic elements like the funny gnome add memorable moments for players.
- “That framing does a lot of heavy lifting—it immediately gives the game personality, grounding its otherwise simple mechanics in a familiar and slightly humorous context inspired by the early days of online gaming infrastructure.”
- “The retro aesthetic, combined with subtle humor and references to MMO culture, gives it charm that goes beyond its mechanics.”
- “I can only recommend games to my friends here if they are localized, and it's pretty rare that smaller indie titles with text/humor based jokes get a translation, so I appreciate that.”
monetization
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
80%
The monetization of the game is criticized for being a cash grab, with a short gameplay length of around 2 hours for a £10 price. Users feel the game relies heavily on ads and microtransactions, detracting from the overall value and experience.
- “But the full game is not much longer than the demo itself, £10 for a game that lasts 2 or so hours. I was excited for the release as it seemed like a genuinely fun game when I played the demo, but it's become clear it's obviously just a cash grab.”
- “I guess they got their money from the cash grab and are running.”
- “You made a video with a title saying 'we release an incremental after 100 days of work' or something, and I think this advertisement would be cool if the game offered more than 1 hour of content.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
The game's atmosphere is generally praised for being well-crafted, polished, and contributing positively to the overall experience. The setting helps distinguish it within its genre, though some players feel it falls slightly short of their expectations.
- “If you set your expectations for a small, tight and really polished incremental experience with a nice atmosphere, it's a game for you.”
- “The little things like that add to the atmosphere the developers were aiming for and it's done well because of it.”
- “The setting and atmosphere are good, and the gameplay varies from good to fine.”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is hindered by a glitch affecting the extra currency earned through resets, causing the currency to stall and not progress beyond approximately 40 trillion. This issue impacts the smoothness of gameplay and progression.
- “Oh also, the extra currency for doing this game's version of a reset glitches out, eventually never moving past ~40 tb.”