Korean NCSOFT has announced the launch of pre-registrations of the box office hit Lineage 2M outside the Asian market. In Russia, the project, which generated about $747 million in South Korea alone, will be launched through a local publisher, Innova.
Lineage 2M
Asian MMOs do not always enter the global market.
If they get to Western users, then, as a rule, it happens a few years after the original release on the “native” territory.
A similar story happened with Lineage 2M. The project was released on the Korean market in November 2019. An exclusively local release did not prevent the title from entering the top 10 highest-grossing games in the world in December of the same year. In the first three months of sales alone, the game grossed $152 million.
By the way, then we wrote that the game had the weakest release among all mobile Lineage. However, judging by AppMagic data, Lineage 2M is the strongest title in the line today. Its monthly revenue is at the level of Lineage M and significantly exceeds the turnover of Lineage 2: Revolution.
To date, according to an independent analytical service, the total revenue of Lineage 2M from the Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong markets amounted to $835 million.
In the wake of such success, the game is preparing for global expansion. On September 29, NCSOFT opened pre-registrations in 29 countries, including Russia. The peculiarity of launching in our region is not a direct release, but work through a local player. The latter is the Innova company.
It is unclear what expectations the Korean publisher associates with the international launch of the game. However, in the Asian market, the title showed an excellent level of cash retention. The project, according to unofficial estimates, earns around $35-40 million every month.
Lineage 2M is a mobile MMORPG. The game is considered to be the implementation of the classic Lineage 2 according to modern patterns — with autoboy, gacha and other functionality fashionable in game design of the 20s.