I'm not sure if there is already a topic like this :U

Yesterday we were talking about random stuff while playing and we focused our attention on the fact that this game is so popular in Brasil Turkey and Spain (and so on) and the exact opposite in other countries, and we were trying to figure out a reason but we failed :P

So, what is in your opinion the reason this game is quite known in some country and almost unknown in others?

(and if a kind sent could change the thread's title i wrote IF insttead of IS ;_; )

I personally think there are two factors that should be considered: community and what I'll call infrastructure.

One of TFM's best features is that it's so undeniably multiplayer. Putting a lot of people together with a chatbox and something fun to do (e.g. failing and seeing shamans fail) can be pretty hilarious and keeps people to come back. Watching the (now ancient) meet the mouse vid captures this very well.

On the other hand there are more practical reasons. As far as multiplayer games go, TFM is relatively lightweight and can even be played in a browser and on relatively low performance machines and networks. Personally I've played the game for nearly a year using the network of the university building close to where I lived at the time. I could still play alright even though the signal was very poor. I can't speak for the very popular communities, but for NL at least, most people have really fast internet connections combined with a rather low ping. A lot of these people end up playing TFM for a short while and then move on to more advanced but also more demanding games.

Oh and, don't forget the PL community on your list, they're now placing 3rd/4th biggest community depending on whether you look at peak hours or averages.