Maple Story Nets $150-500M in Revenue for 2008

By Alicia Ashby On February 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Analyst DFC Intelligence is preparing to issue a report next month about the MMORPG sector, and granted an early look at the report's estimates for revenue generated by MMORPGs in 2008 to GigaOm. While the top earner in the space was World of Warcraft and the second was the prepaid card-driven Fantasy Westward Journey, the third highest-grossing game was the MMORPG Maple Story with $150 to 500 million in estimated revenue generated. A 2D game targeted primarily at kids and teens, Maple Story is a free-to-play title that monetizes primarily through microtransactions.

DFC analyst David Cole stated that this is likely because a low-budget Asian title like Maple Story offers a higher profit margin than a Western subscription-oriented title like World of Warcraft. Asian MMO Shanda Online, which also monetizes through microtransactions, has its revenue estimated in the same $150 to 500 million range and is the number four title on the list. DFC is only releasing revenue estimate ranges ahead of the report because not all final numbers for all games on the list have been reported yet, but does not anticipate that the rankings will be significantly different in the final report.

The complete list of top ten earning titles according to DFC's advance data is as follows:

1. World of Warcraft, launched 2004
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG; client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Monthly subscription, retails sales, prepaid cards (in Asia)
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $500 million-plus

2. Fantasy Westward Journey, launched 2004
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Prepaid cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

3. Maple Story, launched 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG for kids, client install with 2D graphics
Revenue sources: Microtransactions, prepaid cards, international licensing
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

4. Shanda (company, includes Legend of Mir and World of Legend series), launched 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5 graphics
Revenue sources: Prepaid cards, virtual item sales, freemium subscriptions
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

5. Lineage I and Lineage II , launched 1998 and 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5 graphics (Lineage) and 3D graphics (Lineage II)
Revenue sources: Subscription, prepaid cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

6. Runescape
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG for kids, web-based with 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Premium subscription, prepaid cards, real-world advertising
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

7. Club Penguin, launched 2006
Genre/Platform: Virtual world for kids, web-based 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Premium subscriptions, prepaid game cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

8. Lord of the Ring Online
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

9. Warhammer Online
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

10. Age of Conan
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

It is extremely noteworthy that free-to-play titles like Runescape and the Club Penguin virtual world for kids are generating more revenue than a well-established traditional subscription-model MMO like Lord of the Rings Online, in addition to 2008 subscription launches like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. It indicates that lowering barriers to entry for new players as low as possible and keeping operating costs down is far more important than securing a definite monthly payment from each and every player in a game.

In the report, DFC's Cole notes that Maple Story developer Minho Kim disclosed that the game has over 87 million registered users. A general rule of thumb is that you can reasonably expect about 5 to 10% of a game's total playerbase to be active at any given time, so that would mean that at any hour of the day, about 13 to 17 million people are playing Maple Story concurrently. Not only does that number exceed the known total userbase of World of Warcraft (11 million users), but it effectively quadruples WoW's usual numbers of concurrent active users (about 2 to 3 million).