Bluehole’s new sugardaddy comes in the form of a battle royale style shooter that relies on almost zero crossover intellectual property from its flagship MMORPG, TERA. This was a deliberate choice since there was actually supposed to be an Elin inspired character in the game. The following was one of the renderings from Project EXA (what became known as PUBG).
Since March 2017 when it was released via Steam’s early access, it has sold over 4 million copies while raking in over $100 million in revenues. Steam peak CCU’s as well as Twitch viewership numbers for this game are truly staggering (both six digits).
TERA in its first few years was one of the top 4 MMO’s that consistently generated over $100 million in revenues worldwide (2014). As of 2016, it was still in the top 4 worldwide in terms of revenues. For Bluehole, PUBG represents a completely new revenue stream that could surpass TERA’s revenues. This will allow them to put focus on their new MMO which they have been working on (Project W was announced back in 2014) in partnership with Kakao (due to the investment they made in that MMO). TERA itself will likely not be a huge benefactor unless they can kill 2 birds with one stone by improving the optimization on the PC via the changes being done for the console version (more on that below).
Now that I have been playing TERA regularly in place of Devilian, I am witnessing the exact same issues that plagued Devilian (had to bring it up again for comparisons sake) in terms of recycling content and power creeping things (worse yet, removal of a lot of content and systems including guild Sky Castles, crusades, and the original Island of Dawn starter zone). It hasn’t reached the level of near abandonment like Devilian though because software engineers still retune/rebalance dungeons as well as insure that daily quest rewards are inline with the content. But there hasn’t necessarily been a ton of new content either.
The reason why I favored playing Devilian over TERA was because it had the aesthetics of TERA in an isometric camera view along with much simpler ARPG style combat where it is far easier to play unlike TERA’s action combat system which requires more attention and skill. What I mean is while I do enjoy that style of combat/much more skillful play (TERA’s real time action combat is one of the best where it is extremely visceral and satisfying), there are times when I just want to disengage my brain and lazily play/not be completely focused on positioning and having that cross hair (TERA does not use tabbed targeting which is one of the things I dislike about ArcheAge) laser focused manually on the target. I could normally play Devilian half asleep or do relatively well when playing it with high latency (during those times I wasn’t in the US); can’t get away doing that in TERA though since it requires far more engagement.
The point is that I believe Bluehole is recognizing the limitations of the original designs for these older games and they’ve made a decision to invest more into these newer titles (PUBG and Project W). As to what benefits will occur with the PS4 and Xbox One versions of TERA (which will use Unreal Engine 4) for the PC version (which is built on Unreal Engine 3) remains to be seen. That alone will bring improved graphics and performance which the PC version has sorely lacked. If the newer engine for console allows them to bring that to the PC, TERA could get a nice shot in the arm in that area. It still needs actual new content though which given Project W, is not likely to be any sort of high priority.
Some people believe that the success of PUBG will allow Bluehole to invest more in TERA. Again, TERA on its own has done exceptionally well worldwide but as I am learning from playing it a lot more now, hasn’t necessarily translated into significant content (speaking relative to what exists in the game). Further design effort into the game seems highly unlikely either because the primary benefactors will be the private investors/venture capitalists that have been backing Bluehole for many years while any capital reinvestment will go towards their newer IP’s. Project W itself is likely going to be one of the last PC MMO’s they will invest design/development time in given that most of the venture capital money in South Korea is now mobile focused (that is until the pendulum swings in a different direction).
If anything, Bluehole will milk the success of PUBG as much as possible while working on Project W. Should they ever decide to introduce the above character in the game, the South Korea and Japan numbers for this game could likely jump up significantly from their current single digit percentages. TERA’s intellectual property (especially as it relates to anything Elin related) is something they will obviously leverage because that is frankly what makes them the most revenue.
Devilian itself as I’ve noted before is a non-factor on the PC side and there is a point where low CCU’s will become an issue that Trion can’t ignore because they are already running the game with skeleton resources (going on almost one year already) in order to cut operating expenses since that property is no longer generating material revenues. Devilian Mobile is having its lunch eaten now by both Lineage 2 Revolution and NCSoft’s Lineage M (which won’t be released in the west) in South Korea which isn’t good news for Bluehole Ginno. Once Lineage 2 Revolution releases in North America later this year, the jig may be up for Ginno’s CEO as parent Bluehole may end up deciding to stop wasting any additional resources on that IP (instead choosing to make a proper mobile version of TERA).
