Top 10 online games by free-to-play earnings - worldwide

Superdata research released yet another report looking at the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games.

[Software_Lover]

........... Is there really that much money out there? Wow these numbers are staggering. And they say devs are leaving the PC.

Who wants to team up and create a studio to make a F2P mmo lol.

[WeAreLegion]

Me, actually. I'm working on one. Haha.

[hay]

Who doesn't... Who doesn't...

[guitarded77]

Best thing is if you can design a F2P puzzler with a mass addiction. Something like Angry Birds is low maintenance and high profits. MMO's are cool, but definitely high maintenance... but there is also the easy option to add more content over time to keep people addicted.

[equal_youth]

Are you serious?^^ would be great to hear more about it :D

[Lord_Sloth]

Message me with positions still open.

[garrettbobbyferguson]

@Panda

we're assuming here that the AAA games aren't crap, which isn't usually the case.

[Pandamobile]

Why do you think the PC gaming revenue is higher than the entire console industry?

[kamper]

more players?

[sovkhan]

@Panda

Are you kidding yourself????

Pc revenue are merely 1/5 of the whole industry...

Console 3/5 of the pie, so get your numbers straight!!!

And that with pc players number superior to the number of all console players combined.

http://www.gartner.com/news...

@kamper

Did you read Panda's statement??

The post was for him only, never talked about f2p's even if some are coming to the consoles.

[kamper]

sure.. But how many console games are free? The article is about free 2 play games...

[Killa78]

Chatting out your bum bum bum...

[Pandamobile]

Here's a source for all the non-believers.

http://arstechnica.com/gami...

[sovkhan]

@Panda

I'm already aware of this, this is an estimate and even with it , the pc revenue are only 25 billions - real number for for pc 2014 is 20 billions. Total Video game industry is 101 billions!!!

Check up the real numbers provided by my link and browse the net with other known institutions such Idate and CNC, The numbers i've given match these.

http://www.afjv.com/news/21...

But you can believe what you want.

[AndrewLB]

On a global basis, PC games market has surpassed the console gaming sector in terms of revenues, and that is an undeniable fact.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/n...
http://www.forbes.com/sites...

Sovkhan- That number of $101 billion includes console hardware sales and completely skews the comparison since it doesn't include PC hardware in the $20-$25 billion PC segment. If you were to include revenue from gaming PC hardware, that number would be 3-4x larger considering nVidia alone in 2013 had around $5 billion in revenue from selling graphics chips to the third party companies who make the actual cards and sell them in stores. And since most would agree that the actual chips nVidia sell constitute anywhere from 15-30% of the actual retail card's price... the overall revenue from just the cards that utilize nVidia chips probably exceeds $20 billion annually. And keep in mind, AMD's graphics cards are 30% of that market, not to mention all the CPU's and APU's manufactured by both them and Intel. And lets not forget the big business of DIY motherboards, audio cards, PC cases, RAM, cooling, and power supplies which the vast majority are sold to people who use their PC at least part of the time for gaming. Most businesses purchase their computers from companies like Dell, HP, etc and are not built with the quality of components found at places like Newegg.com

[HammadTheBeast]

@Sovkhan

The revenue is 1/5 of console revenue for games and purchases only. Not including PC parts. Let's remember how much PC gaming builds cost(at least as much as PS4/XBO) and then add it up.

[kingduqc]

Beause PC revenue has surpassed the total console revenue combined as in, it's factual.

http://hexus.net/gaming/new...

[sovkhan]

@Hammad

@Andrew

If you look at its this way then you are right.

But all the numbers i have through different channels don't count pc hardware as part of video game industry revenue.
While counting consoles hardware...

Maybe because pc is much larger than just it gaming sector? Or is it because of its multiple vendors?
Anyway thanks for the clarification.

[Pandamobile]

PC just has a ridiculous amount of market penetration.

From the most extreme end of the casual side of things, to the most extreme of the hardcore gamers; PC gaming is everywhere. In every country every corner of the developed (and developing!) world, PCs are going to be present. It's not uncommon for even the cheapest of the cheap PCs being sold today to possess some gaming capability. Any machine can play a Flash or browser-based game. Most machines can handle basic 3D graphics like Minecraft and League of Legends type stuff with relative ease.

Long story short, PC gaming is friggin' everywhere. It might not be as "mainstream" as console gaming, but that for the most part is just because of a lack of governing body.

There's a lot of benefit to being an entirely free market. PC is where gaming innovation first takes its roots.

[SilentNegotiator]

Exactly; because of an abundance of crap F2P and P2W games.

[Pandamobile]

They may be crap to you, if all you play is AAA console games, but they've got millions and millions of players playing and spending money.

Gotta widen your horizons, dude.

[XanderZane]

It's mostly MMO and MOBA games that make all the money for the PC. Move these games from the equation and it would be even ground.

[ThunderPulse]

Me

[Stupid]

im free :p

[megatron00733]

DOTA

[lotta]

What is dungeon fight online and crossfire? Am I missing something lol?

[kamper]

CrossFire is a pay to win Counter-Strike clone. Popular because it's free and runs on anything.

[HammadTheBeast]

Both more popular in Asia than other regions. Crossfire is decently popular in NA, last time I played was few years ago, pretty fun especially with Ghost mode, but really pay-to-win or grind focused.

[Soulsaber]

Crossfire has ridiculous prices for VIP guns you could buy to have an advantage over players. You are paying a 100 bucks for one of these weapons and many high ranking players purchase them.

[kamper]

I'm always curious how accurate these articles are since ZoS doesn't have to disclose the money they are making. Unless a shareholder is leaking the info, it's going to be guesswork

[Fireseed]

This graph is actually way outdate as League recently took the top spot

[solar]

yep, ive seen that chart months ago.

[AndrewLB]

Any publicly traded company is required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose revenue, gross profit, net profit, expenditures, and all other financial data to not only share holders, but to the general public.
There are some privately traded companies that have shares whose purchase is restricted to employees, private partners, and friends/family of the majority owner, where some (but not all) information is made public.
A good example of such a company is Farmers & Merchant's Bank which WAS a privately owned bank here in SoCal that went public in 2008 i believe. Shares now are around $5,800 but prior to going public, each share was not public knowledge and valued at over $300,000 each. I only know this because my good friend is the grandson of the founder and a share holder.

[WeAreLegion]

League being on top doesn't surprise me at all.

I am a little surprised that Maplestory is doing so well though. Good for them!

By this time next year, Hearthstone will probably be higher. That community keeps growing and growing.

Also, I thought War Thunder was more popular than World of Tanks. Ha. I way WAY off. I just don't know anyone who plays WoT.

[lotta]

I think your right. Heathstone is a pretty good game

[Magicite]

Im surprised about Lineage 1.

[C_Menz]

World of Tanks completely outclasseds War Thunder when it comes to size and generating profit.

War Thunder has a slight graphical edge, "realism", and better aerial combat. WoT is the more enjoyable game for most of you like tank/armor combat since it straddles arcade and realism.

[Ka7be]

Its really sad to see crappy and rigged game like World of tanks in the top 10....

[kamper]

Why. It's more or less the biggest game in the world? With so many players it's not hard to beliv ethat people would love to pay $$ for ingame mounts and stuff?

[C_Menz]

If you truly believe WoT is rigged then I feel bad for you since you are missing a great game.

[user5669510]

Crossfire I forgot all about this game. I didn't know they was this good or just this addictive. I'm going to have to check it out. Crazy how much revenue they generate in one year.

[Roccetarius]

Not even all of those games are MMO's, so it's hard to even take this seriously. No doubt they're making a lot of money, but they could at least make a more credible list.

[lotta]

What is a MMORPG these days?

[Roccetarius]

The games on this list would be WoW, Lineage 1, Star Wars and Maplestory.

The rest of the games are mere lobby MP games.

[younglj01]

As someone who plays crossfire daily. Wish they would spend some of that money on an better hack system..The only reason I still play is because I'm in love with Ghost Mode...

[VGMMDI]

Where is the best free game of all time? The one that broke boundaries and practically brought gaming back in the big on the map? Where is Flappy Bird?

[Gigglefist]

I assume this is based on microtransactions, not ad revenue.

Even then, he didn't make NEARLY that much on ads lol

[VGMMDI]

Never even played the game, but I noticed it had made my coworkers at my last job brain dead.

[reaper24]

So, what the hell is Crossfire? It makes so much money and I haven't ever heard of it.

[TheMapleNerd]

It is like Combat Arms, but better.

[Gigglefist]

I figured League would be number 1. Never even heard of Crossfire though lol

[KirbysDump]

Pay 2 win more like

[ashcroft]

Not all f2p games are pay 2 win. I'm starting to believe people just randomly want to be heard with little to no substance in their comments.

[girlwithturn]

#1 - Summoners War.