How Much Money Do Free-To-Play MMOs Make?

simoniker writes "Over at Gamasutra, a new feature article discusses how much money free-to-play MMO games make, with specific real-world stats from game developers willing to discuss how they make money with microtransaction-based PC games. In particular, Puzzle Pirates co-creator Daniel James reveals that 'the average revenue per user (ARPU) is between one and two dollars a month, but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything. As a result, he says, approximately 5,000 gamers are generating the $230,000 in revenue he sees each month.' It's obviously quite a different model from the regular $15/month for World Of Warcraft, but it evidently works for some companies."

Comments

Re:bad math

[Knave75]

if the average user gives an average of 1-2 dollars per month, how can 5000 users generate 230,000 dollars?

I believe that the average per user is $1-2 per month.

However, the average per paying user was something along the lines of $50. So the math would go something like:

($50/paying user)(5000 users) = $250,000

or

($1.50/user)(160,000 users) = $240,000

Re:Dear free MMO companies

[Mprx]

Puzzle Pirates is written in cross platform Java. Works on every major OS.

Wait What? How Bad is My Math...

[greymond]

"(ARPU) is between one and two dollars a month, but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything. As a result, he says, approximately 5,000 gamers are generating the $230,000 in revenue"

So 10% of the player base is paying him and that player base equals 5,000 people. So there are 50,000 people a month playing - nice.

But wait a sec...ARPU is only $2 on the top end and 5,000 people pay this, so that's $10,000 a month - where is the other $220,000 coming from!!!!! Even if all 50k people were spending $2 a month that's be $100k - Where did I miss something?

OH I GET IT NOW - From the actual article....
"Indeed, James reveals that Three Rings' MMO Puzzle Pirates takes in approximately $50 each month from each paying user (ARPPU) for a total of $230,000 a month, all resulting from microtransactions."

This is different than what the blurb mentioned - I guess it did get me to read, but only this time - you're tactics won't always work on me!

Re:Wait What? How Bad is My Math...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if I add apples and oranges, I can eliminate the national debt as long as I remember to divide by zero!

10% of the player base is paying him

No, 10% of the player base has ever paid him. Some other % (presumably smaller) is the 5000 players paying monthly.

ARPU is only $2 on the top end and 5,000 people pay this, so that's $10,000 a month

No, the average is over all of the players, so thats (total players)*$2 a month.

Re:Dear free MMO companies

[Quirkz]

Some of us are browser based. I play www.KingdomofLoathing.com all the time, and it's platform independent. I also run my own game at www.Twilightheroes.com.

With just under 30k accounts, maybe 2,000 of them active in a given month, I'm not really quite "massive" yet but my own experience is that I pull in on average less than $0.50 per account per month, with some fair bit of fluctuation. I'd be jumping for joy at an average of $2/player.