Blizzard's World of Warcraft still reigns supreme over subscription-based massively multiplayer online games, despite sluggish growth in the rest of the industry.
The pay-to-play MMO industry has been declining, but that hasn't stopped World of Warcraft from making worldwide revenues of $1.04 billion in 2013.
World of Warcraft had 36 percent share of the MMO market last year, which collectively made $2.88 billion in 2013.
The research also reported that the number of MMO players have steadily been dropping, from 30.6 million active players all over the world per month in 2010 to only 23.4 million active players.
To make up for the decreasing player base, most MMO games have switched from a strictly subscription-based model to a microtransaction-based model, which has led to the growth percentage of revenue from microtransactions made within MMO games from 14 percent to 27 percent. Average monthly spending has also grown from $16 to $46.
World of Warcraft continues to garner huge success in a market that sees its competition constantly making adjustments to stay afloat. While the number of subscribers for World of Warcraft is declining as users move on to other games, millions of users are brought back every time an expansion is released. The number of monthly users, which once peaked at 15 million, has declined to about 7 million.
World of Warcraft's success may be the reason why Blizzard has been delaying the development and release of Project Titan, which is rumored to be another MMO game. There are only a few details known about the game, but it is thought to be Blizzard's replacement for the aging World of Warcraft once the game falls out of favor. However, with World of Warcraft still raking in a billion dollars of profit for Blizzard, it looks like Project Titan would be in the drawing board for Blizzard for years to come. Blizzard would not choose to spend hundreds of millions of dollars now into a game that will go into the same space as World of Warcraft, when so many other games have tried and failed to topple the game from the top spot in the MMO industry.
A distant second behind World of Warcraft is Lineage 1 by NCsoft, which garnered a profit of $253 million last year. The game, which is popular mostly in Asia, had a market share of 9 percent.
Star Wars: The Old Republic sits at the fourth spot, with $165 million in revenue and a 6 percent market share last year. While the game's disappointing debut led to most of the game being converted into a free-to-play model, the game still has subscription options that have been making Electronic Arts a profit.
