http://www.thisisgame.com/webzine/news/nboard/4/?n=93076
Smilegate RPG is the South Korean publisher of Lost Ark (Tripod Studio is the developer and subsidiary of Smilegate RPG, which is a subsidiary of parent Smilegate) earned 30 billion won (or approximately $26 million USD) since the open beta soft launch of the game in November 2018 (this is based on the two months the game was in service for 2018).
Smilegate RPG’s operating expenses for all of 2018 was around 58 billion KRW (or approximately $51 million USD) which means that Lost Ark should begin turning an actual operating profit after 4-6 months (before they begin publishing in regions outside Korea and should operating expenses remain relatively stable). This will still take years to recoup not only the initial 100 billion KRW ($88 million USD) investment in costs incurred during the initial 7 years of development, but the expected ROI that may have been pitched to early investors.
While still not officially confirmed, the company still has plans for a mobile version of the game (it’s design has already taken that into account) where they have ongoing recruitment for client developers with Unreal Engine 4 expertise (they are also recruiting on the PC side as well where they may be evaluating redoing the game in UE4).
The only other regions that Smilegate RPG has negotiated publishing agreements with are China (Tencent) and Russia (Mail.ru aka My.com); the Russian closed beta is expected to occur in the later half of this year. The company will need to cement publishing agreements in North America and Europe in order to make additional dents in their initial investment costs (I bet those publishing rights aren’t going to come cheap for the companies that are vying for it (unfortunately, there aren’t an abundance of good options and it’s not clear if Smilegate wants to self-publish this; they would need to overhaul and beef up their Smilegate West operation in Toronto, Canada).
As I’ve noted in prior postings, I am no longer very high on this game (it has a great early hook) courtesy of the original designers that put a lot of effort into the pre-end game portion). However, it is highly likely all of those designers and developers are no longer with the company which partially explains why the end game design has gone to crap (I personally do not find it fun or engaging). Don’t get me wrong. The game once published in the west, will have decent numbers (unless they go with a terrible publisher from the start). The problem will be retention once the “new car smell” wears off past the existing max level end game item level grind.
