World of Warcraft Remains #1 Revenue-generating MMO, Topping $1B Annually

I’m sure this comes as a surprise to no one, but Blizzard’s World of Warcraft remains the world’s biggest MMO in terms of revenue. While subscription numbers for the game have declined in recent years, Blizzard still enjoys over 7 million subscribers, and with the recent addition of an in-game store, there’s little doubt that the game is going to remain at the top of the list for some time.

Some MMOs in the current top ten list, compiled by Games Industry International, might surprise you. Lineage – as in the 1998 series original – places at #2. That’s despite the fact that the game is currently only available in South Korea. The title’s sequel, Lineage II, ties with Blade and Soul for eighth place.

• 1. World of Warcraft
• 2. Lineage
• 3. TERA: Online
• 4. Star Wars: The Old Republic
• 5. Lord of the Rings Online
• 6. EVE Online
• 7. Aion
• 8. Blade and Soul
• 8. Lineage 2
• 10. RIFT

When BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic went free-to-play, many speculated that it would not last too long as an active MMO. Well, on account of the fact that the game places fourth on this list, it looks like the game has quite a bit of life left in it. Since the official servers for my favorite MMO, Asheron’s Call, hinges on the success of Turbine’s other games, I’m glad to see The Lord of the Rings Online place on this list.

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft

As Polygon notes, Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls Online hasn’t been around long enough to appear on this list, having just released three months ago. While the game kicked-off with three-quarters of a million subscribers, it doesn’t seem that all of them have stuck with the game, if Raptr’s charts are anything to go by.

Overall, Blizzard continues to be unstoppable, but things look quite good for NCsoft as well, which has four titles on this list. It’ll be interesting to see where things stand in a year’s time, with games like ESO stabilizing its playerbase, and games like Trion’s hyped-up ArcheAge soon to come out.