The early performance of 'Darkest Days,' a zombie apocalypse shooting RPG developed by NHN, is falling short of expectations. Since starting its global open beta test in April, three months ago, the number of global users has rapidly declined, and the daily active users (DAU) in Korea have also dropped to less than 1,000. As this is an important first challenge to regain the 'game house' glory, NHN aims to improve the game's quality before its official release.
According to the global PC game distribution platform Steam on the 25th, the response from gamers worldwide to Darkest Days is chilly. As of the 24th, the real-time average concurrent users (CCU) for Darkest Days was 562, with a peak CCU of only 906 in 24 hours. This is about 14% of the peak CCU recorded just after the open beta started, which was 4,084. The positive rating among all Steam user evaluations is 45.6%, classified as 'mixed.' This figure falls short of the 50% required for a 'mostly positive' rating.
'World War Z,' a popular title in the same zombie shooting genre, has a positive rate of 83%, earning a 'very positive' rating, while 'Back 4 Blood' maintains a score close to 'mostly positive' at around 68.5%. Considering that most Steam games rated as classics score 80-90% or higher, the evaluation of Darkest Days is rather disappointing.
The same goes for Korea, which is NHN's home ground. According to Mobile Index, as of the 22nd, the domestic app DAU for Darkest Days was recorded at 952. The game started strong with 13,408 users on its open beta launch day, April 24, but has seen a 93% decrease in three months. The monthly active users (MAU) also dropped from 77,349 in April to 42,416 in May and 5,938 in June, marking a reduction of about 92% over two months.
Darkest Days was anticipated as a representative title in NHN's strategy for six new games announced earlier this year, but the current metrics are far below market expectations. The official release of Darkest Days has not yet been confirmed. Internally, the goal is to achieve commercialization within the year and improve the quality of content during the open beta period. Kim Dong-seon, the general producer of Darkest Days and Director Jeong Mun-jae of the game business division, stated in June that they would release the game officially when it reaches a point where 'anyone who plays it finds it enjoyable.'
Currently, users of Darkest Days are pointing out issues such as discomfort in controls, repetitive content structure, and a lack of growth motivation. To address these, NHN implemented a large-scale content update on the 17th and is focusing on enhancing the game's quality to prevent the core user base from leaving.
Previously, NHN's CEO Jung Woo-jin set a target of over 30% growth in game business revenue, promoting the six new games, including Darkest Days, as key growth pillars. However, the game division's revenue in the first quarter remained at 119.6 billion won, a 1.9% decrease compared to the same period last year, raising concerns that if the new titles do not succeed, the entire game business could enter another stagnation phase.
NHN stated that the game is still in the open beta stage and that it is difficult to evaluate overall performance based solely on Steam-centric figures. Currently, the game is being operated with natural user inflow without separate marketing, and about 80% of all users are using the mobile platform, explaining the limitations of evaluating the performance based only on PC-based Steam numbers.
A representative from NHN noted, 'Natural inflow is consistently occurring in major overseas regions such as India, Brazil, and the United States,' adding that 'especially since the large update on the 17th, the weekly reconnection rate in Korea, Japan, the United States, and Taiwan has doubled compared to before, and there has been a roughly 70% increase in new users in the Russian region, indicating improvements in metrics.' They continued, 'An average of about 2,000 new users are being added daily compared to before, and the average playtime is showing a gradual increase,' and added that 'the official release will be carried out at a point when sufficient preparations have been completed.'