According to the latest research from SuperData, there is some serious money being made from MMOs. The top five subscription-based MMOs in the world as it stands are: World of Warcraft, Lineage 1, TERA: Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Lord of the Rings Online.
World of Warcraft leads this effort when it comes to revenues, with $1.04 billion made last year, securing itself a 36% chunk of the subscription-based MMO market share for 2013. Lineage 1 comes in at second place with $253 million for NCsoft and a 9% share, TERA: Online generated $236 million for NHN Corporation in third spot with an 8% share. Star Wars: The Old Republic sits in fourth place with $165 million made for EA with 6% of the subscription-based MMO market share, and Lord of the Rings Online made $104 million for Turbine, Inc. and secured them 4%.
Revenue subscriptions have dropped every year from 2010, from 30.6 million subscribers to 23.4 million this year. MMO publishers see this decrease in subscribers due to the increased offerings of free content, more payment tiers and microtransactions.
