Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of five MMOs making more than $100m annually

Written by David Hing

July 22, 2014 | 11:01

Tags: #lord-of-the-rings-online #mmo #rift #star-wars-the-old-republ #star-wars-the-old-republic #world-of-warcraft

Companies: #ea #ncsoft

Five MMOs are currently making more than $100m every year according to research from SuperData.

A surprise entry in that top five is EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, which made $165m worldwide in revenue over 2013. That figure is comprised of subscriptions, expansion packs and microtransactions. Overall, the Star Wars MMO has a 6% market share.

Unsurprisingly taking the top spot is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft which easily surpasses all other entries on the list with a 36% market share and $1,041m in annual revenue. The closest any MMO comes to Warcraft’s throne is NCSoft’s 16-year-old Lineage, which rakes in $253m a year and has a 9% market share. NCSoft also has another three titles in the top 10 list with Aion, Blade and Soul and Lineage 2 taking seventh, eighth and ninth place.

TERA: Online takes third place with an 8% market share and $236m annual revenue and the top five is rounded out by Lord of the Rings Online which pulls in $104m annually.

EVE Online reportedly makes $93m and enjoys a 3% MMO market share with its hardcore space trading niche placing it at sixth place and the top 10 is completed by RIFT which has just 1% of the market and makes $36m.

The research also shows that subscription revenue has been dropping every year since 2010 with overall subscriber numbers dropping from 30.6m to 23.4m with the loss in revenue being partially mitigated by microtransactions and different payment options.

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, it was reported that it likely cost EA approximately $500m to develop. Developer Bioware has previously stated that the game can break even on 500,000 subscribers. The MMO switched to a free-to-play model two years ago.
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