With initial box sales, mmo's are typically long term profitable.
basic numbers- average mmo takes ~5 million to make. most expensive mmo todate cost about 20 million.
100 thousand accounts= 5 million in box sales
+ 15 a month(which unlike the box sales ALL of it goes to the company made the game) or from month 2 on 1.5 million in gross revenue.
a mmo typically needs 50 thousand accounts to make a profit after all expenses.
the first highly successful mmo - everquest- the developers were planning on breaking into hte black only after being on the market for a year or more...because they didn't think they would generate more than about 75 thousand active accounts - they were thinking niche market.
world of warcraft...generates -in the US & eu alone- approxiamately -between 52 and 60 million dollars in gross revenue- monthly.
