mrstickball said:
If MS is making $16m/mo, that puts it in a very strong position, but WoW is making far more than that. Blizzard, in 07 (in which, WoW had a much smaller userbase) reported sales of $1.2 Billion USD for the year. That was with 7-8 million concurrent users (it's 11m now, FYI). That's nearly $100m/mo, and had profits exceeding $40 million USD a month. World of Warcraft hit $250 million USD a year in 2005. When you talk WoW players, you have to factor in:
Between it all, I wouldn't be suprised if WoW is bringing in between $150 and $200 million a month now. Maple Story is doing phenominal, but you have to consider that it's revenue streams aren't going to be as hot as a subscription based service like WoW. |
I wasn't suggesting it was doing better than WoW. No way, haha. I was just saying it's very profitable as well. By now, I'm guessing it's closer to around 50 mil (I read a forum post from a PR person stating that US was its biggest market in terms of revenue) considering all the growth its had. The amount of new content they provide is pretty small relative to WoW, so it's probably more of a smaller investment, smaller payoff kind of thing.
@SmokedHostage: I'm not arguing against WoW, but this 11 mil argument has got to stop. They've only recently had that much. They've had to build up to that mark. It hasn't been making money as if it's had 11 mil users this entire time.