Korea's MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) market is showing a reorganization trend centered on NCSOFT's new title "Aion 2." With major new releases this year such as Netmarble's "Vampyr," Nexon's "Mabinogi Mobile," and Wemade's "Legend of Ymir" entering a downward phase, Aion 2 has appeared and looks to be monopolizing market demand.
According to Mobile Index, an app data analytics platform, Netmarble's "Vampyr" surpassed 200,000 concurrent users in July and ranked No. 1 in mobile revenue, but its app DAU (daily active users) has recently fallen to the mid-20,000 range. A large-scale inter-server conquest war introduced in September (total prize 5 million diamonds) kept momentum going, but after the November launch of "Aion 2," the pace of new user inflows slowed and the metrics appear to have adjusted.
Nexon's "Mabinogi Mobile," which won the Presidential Award at this year's Korea Game Awards, showed a similar trend. Its app DAU stayed in the mid-200,000 range throughout May to August, but fell to the low-150,000 range this month. The impact is relatively smaller due to the genre's characteristics, but analysts say market volatility is growing as top-tier MMORPGs enter a simultaneous correction phase.
The steepest drop is seen in Wemade's new title "Legend of Ymir." Touted as a next-generation MMORPG based on Unreal Engine 5, the game peaked at 104,906 app DAU in February before entering a decline. It fell to the 40,000 range in March, the low-10,000 range in April, and below 3,000 by late September. As of the 28th of last month, DAU was 1,617. MAU (monthly active users) also fell from 238,901 in February to 8,240 in October, cementing the downtrend.
By contrast, NCSOFT's Aion 2 is rapidly seizing the market while rival titles fail to gain traction. Immediately after its release on the 19th of last month, app DAU reached 385,329, and since then it has held steady in the 150,000–200,000 range, establishing a stable high. According to the company, DAU including PC has surpassed 1.5 million. Revenue exceeded 10 billion won four days after launch, and with more than 90% of payments occurring on PC, some say actual payment volume is larger than what mobile revenue tallies show. Observers also say NCSOFT's swift resolution of contentious issues through consecutive live broadcasts right after launch helped sustain the metrics.
A game industry official said, "It is difficult to play multiple MMORPG titles at the same time, and the pattern of existing games' user metrics wobbling in unison whenever a major new title arrives has repeated," adding, "As Aion 2's early performance proved stronger than expected, shifts in demand within the market have become more pronounced."