The big LOA ON Winter took place over the weekend. This is an event where the Lost Ark developers, namely Smilegate, talk about the future of the MMORPG. The Game Director also commented on the release in the West.
What kind of event is this? LOA ON Winter is a major event aimed at players of the MMORPG Lost Ark. It reports on the state of the game as well as upcoming changes and plans for the future.
In addition to the new class announced at this event, it was also about player numbers and the release in the West.
The Game Director of Lost Ark himself spoke, meaning the head of the MMORPG at Smilegate. Thus, the statements have very little to do with Amazon.
How many players do they want to reach? However, they are not very modest regarding the total player numbers worldwide. Here, he mentioned the goal of reaching 20 million registered accounts together with the release in the West.
Currently, Lost Ark is only available in Korea and Russia and has nearly 10 million registered accounts. With the upcoming updates and the release here, they aim to more than double this number.
However, they want to achieve this with long-term success, rather than a short-term hype. The strategy of Lost Ark is to come to stay.
“Korean MMORPGs are simply not that popular in the West”
What is the CEO’s forecast? Regarding the numbers at launch, they want to think more realistically. The Smilegate team expects 200,000 concurrent players at the release in the West. This is about a fifth of the player count that New World was able to achieve at the start.
However, that is not even necessary, according to the Game Director. “When we look at the numbers in Korea, we see that about 83% of players return at some point once they have started. […] Overall, we even have 258 individual players logging in every day since the beta. That is fantastic.”
Long-term success is key: The Smilegate team is convinced that they can retain many players long-term with Lost Ark. The hype at launch does not need to be overly massive, and one must also be realistic.
When asked what the CEO would consider a successful launch in the West, he said: “We are launching in the West in February 2022. Our goal is to reach 200,000 concurrent players at launch. Korean MMORPGs are simply not that popular there [in the West]. If we can maintain 50,000 to 70,000 concurrent players even 3 months after the release, we are successful.”
He emphasizes afterwards that they were also able to record very successful numbers for the release in Russia, which also satisfied the publisher. What numbers Amazon hopes for the release in the West can only be speculated at this point.
“We have increased our player count sevenfold in one year”
What other numbers are interesting? At the beginning of his presentation, the Game Director of Lost Ark talks about some numbers related to Lost Ark. He seems particularly in a good mood here and is looking forward to the release in the West.
These are the numbers he seems particularly proud of when he presents them:
- The players on the Korean server have increased sevenfold since July 2020
- The player count on the Russian servers has increased by 170% since June this year
- Even 4 months after the event peak in June 2021, 78% of the players who played during the events are still active
- Sales in the cash shop have increased 21-fold since July 2020
- Since June 2021, there are 35,320 players on the Korean server logging in every day. These are the same players returning every day, not concurrent players
- The character with the highest DPS dealt 2.4x more damage than the one with the lowest DPS. Therefore, one of the main focuses for 2022 will be on balancing.
What do you think of the numbers? Do you think Smilegate is aiming too high or too low with 200,000 concurrent active players at launch? Do you consider 50,000 to 70,000 concurrent players after three months to be realistic? Feel free to write it to us in the comments here at MeinMMO.
Not sure if you want to play the game? A veteran explains why you should look forward to the MMORPG Lost Ark – But not too much
