This week, Three Rings celebrated the five year anniversary of the highly successful casual massively multi-player online game Puzzle Pirates.

Launching in December 2003, Puzzle Pirates broke new ground by combining mini-game fun with a socially interactive virtual world. Since launch, over seven million accounts have been created with almost two million signing on from word of mouth or player referral. Three Rings has earned over $13 million in revenues, with a large portion coming from the doubloon micro-transaction service launched in 2005. Five years after launch, Puzzle Pirates has accumulated 250 million hours of play time and still retains players from 2003.

Three Rings CEO Daniel James said, "Puzzle Pirates has met our every expectation, and allowed Three Rings to grow as an independent pioneer of casual MMOs and innovator of new business models. This is all thanks to our incredible player community, team and partners." He also addressed the anniversary this week in a letter to players, saying: "We salute or players, new and old, and look forward to many more years of Piratey fun!"

To read the entire letter from the CEO to players, click on the following link:
http://blog.puzzlepirates.com/spyglass/entry/a_pirate_celebration

Puzzle Pirates has inspired many happy players from across the world to send gifts to the Three Rings office. The gifts include a hand woven rug made for a player stationed in Iraq, a three foot wide etched rendering of the Puzzle Pirates logo, over one thousand "real" doubloon coins, hand-made framed portraits and knitted puppets of the game staff, as well as hundreds of cookies, boxes of candy, and thousands of letters. In addition, many long lasting relationships developed from the highly social atmosphere of Puzzle Pirates; including seventeen real-life couples that were married after initially meeting in the game.