Originally posted by Irondust

It is Lineage, started in 1998 and still has millions of players in Korea

 The problem with those of you who said it is Lineage is, Lineage is NO LONGER running (closed 2011), regardless of how much profits it made.

If it is no longer running, it cannot, at this stage, be claimed to be the "longest running profitable MMO" - since UO has already outlived it in length (because it is still going) and strong sign that WoW will probably also do that.

So at the moment, it is UO - until WoW stacked on enough years to oust UO and everyone else too.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Irondust

It is Lineage, started in 1998 and still has millions of players in Korea

 The problem with those of you who said it is Lineage is, Lineage is NO LONGER running (closed 2011), regardless of how much profits it made.

 

If it is no longer running, it cannot, at this stage, be claimed to be the "longest running profitable MMO" - since UO has already outlived it in length (because it is still going) and strong sign that WoW will probably also do that.

 

So at the moment, it is UO - until WoW stacked on enough years to oust UO and everyone else too.

Lineage is still running in Korea.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Irondust

It is Lineage, started in 1998 and still has millions of players in Korea

 The problem with those of you who said it is Lineage is, Lineage is NO LONGER running (closed 2011), regardless of how much profits it made.

 

If it is no longer running, it cannot, at this stage, be claimed to be the "longest running profitable MMO" - since UO has already outlived it in length (because it is still going) and strong sign that WoW will probably also do that.

 

So at the moment, it is UO - until WoW stacked on enough years to oust UO and everyone else too.

NCSoft closed the US servers since it wasn't profitable there, but it's still running on Korea, and actually if you check their Q4 report, it's reponsible for 24% of their sales for Q4 2012 (second only to GW2's 45%, and higher than AION, Lineage 2 and blade and soul combined), and the sales numbers are almost twice as much compared to both Q3 2012 and Q4 2011.... so it's not only still profitable after all this time, it's actually growing.

Originally posted by L0C0Man

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Irondust

It is Lineage, started in 1998 and still has millions of players in Korea

 The problem with those of you who said it is Lineage is, Lineage is NO LONGER running (closed 2011), regardless of how much profits it made.

 

If it is no longer running, it cannot, at this stage, be claimed to be the "longest running profitable MMO" - since UO has already outlived it in length (because it is still going) and strong sign that WoW will probably also do that.

 

So at the moment, it is UO - until WoW stacked on enough years to oust UO and everyone else too.

NCSoft closed the US servers since it wasn't profitable there, but it's still running on Korea, and actually if you check their Q4 report, it's reponsible for 24% of their sales for Q4 2012 (second only to GW2's 45%, and higher than AION, Lineage 2 and blade and soul combined), and the sales numbers are almost twice as much compared to both Q3 2012 and Q4 2011.... so it's not only still profitable after all this time, it's actually growing.

Yet they shut down their NA servers? Sorry but Lineage can't be counted if they had to cut it back due to lack of players. If you want to see a game with little overhead still turning over a good profit look at Everquest. 100k players still 14 years later.   

Originally posted by L0C0Man

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Irondust

It is Lineage, started in 1998 and still has millions of players in Korea

 The problem with those of you who said it is Lineage is, Lineage is NO LONGER running (closed 2011), regardless of how much profits it made.

 

If it is no longer running, it cannot, at this stage, be claimed to be the "longest running profitable MMO" - since UO has already outlived it in length (because it is still going) and strong sign that WoW will probably also do that.

 

So at the moment, it is UO - until WoW stacked on enough years to oust UO and everyone else too.

NCSoft closed the US servers since it wasn't profitable there, but it's still running on Korea, and actually if you check their Q4 report, it's reponsible for 24% of their sales for Q4 2012 (second only to GW2's 45%, and higher than AION, Lineage 2 and blade and soul combined), and the sales numbers are almost twice as much compared to both Q3 2012 and Q4 2011.... so it's not only still profitable after all this time, it's actually growing.

 But UO still running, regardless of whether we count in Lineage Korea (which is already stretching it considering they already pulled out of NA and the west, which means it already half closed shop in a sense).

Until UO stops and Lineage still keeps going on for 1 year after UO stops, Lineage can still not yet claim to be the "longest" running profitable mmo.

The semantic of "Longest"  is > than "most profitable" in the "Longest running profitable" debate, because until a game closes shop, it is can still potentially profit.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

 But UO still running, regardless of whether we count in Lineage Korea (which is already stretching it considering they already pulled out of NA and the west, which means it already half closed shop in a sense).

Until UO stops and Lineage still keeps going on for 1 year after UO stops, Lineage can still not yet claim to be the "longest" running profitable mmo.

The semantic of "Longest"  is > than "most profitable" in the "Longest running profitable" debate, because until a game closes shop, it is can still potentially profit.

 

Lineage earns more money than UO and Everquest combined, so it definetly "Longest profitable". Not "potentially", but really profitable.

UO is not even earning enough to be named on EA reports.  if you count that then there's tons of ancient games that have paid for themselves by now yet are not making any important gain for the company.

if runescape shipped first then that's it, if not it's lineage.

Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

 But UO still running, regardless of whether we count in Lineage Korea (which is already stretching it considering they already pulled out of NA and the west, which means it already half closed shop in a sense).

Until UO stops and Lineage still keeps going on for 1 year after UO stops, Lineage can still not yet claim to be the "longest" running profitable mmo.

The semantic of "Longest"  is > than "most profitable" in the "Longest running profitable" debate, because until a game closes shop, it is can still potentially profit.

 

Lineage earns more money than UO and Everquest combined, so it definetly "Longest profitable". Not "potentially", but really profitable.

It is still "potentially" because, once again, neither UO and Everquest is over.

Plus even if we are going by "your" arbitrary equation of "profit > duration" in this discussion, WoW will beat the crap out of Lineage and Lineage WILL NOT even be a close second. So either way you look at it, Lineage is second, at best.

Originally posted by Rthuth434

UO is not even earning enough to be named on EA reports.  if you count that then there's tons of ancient games that have paid for themselves by now yet are not making any important gain for the company.

if runescape shipped first then that's it, if not it's lineage.

 It really doesn't matter, because the title has the word "Longest" in it. Until UO dies and Lineage match up by lasting another year more than UO, it is not "longest".

And it is certainly not "most profitable" if you are leaning towards "profitable" side of the debate because WoW will beat that by a mile and more, even IF WoW ends now and Lineage ends 5 years later.

lawl. not "most" profitable. i said longest running, profitable mmo. i then further defined profitable as having some meaningful gain to the finances. 

since Lineage pre-dates runescape it's the clear winner there.

Originally posted by strykr619

Yet they shut down their NA servers? Sorry but Lineage can't be counted if they had to cut it back due to lack of players. If you want to see a game with little overhead still turning over a good profit look at Everquest. 100k players still 14 years later.   

If that is the standard then Everquest can't be counted either since EQ1 doesn't have asian market servers.

Originally posted by Rthuth434

lawl. not "most" profitable. i said longest running, profitable mmo. i then further defined profitable as having some meaningful gain to the finances. 

since Lineage pre-dates runescape it's the clear winner there.

 Longest running profitable, even if you define it as a means equation not as in a modal equation of either time or profit, would still NOT be Lineage.

If you calculate means of time/profit I'm sure Lineage would not beat WoW.

No matter how you look at it mathematically, Lineage at the current stage is NOT the "longest running most profitable"

... unless you are NOT looking at it scientifically or mathematically but rather by some artibtrary standards that god knows what it is, lol

Ultima Online was released in 1997

Lineage was released in 1998

Everquest was released in 1999

Asheron's Call was also released in 1999

Runescape was released in 2001

Dark age of Camelot was also released in 2001

EvE online was released in 2003

Final Fantasy XI was also released in 2003

Out of that list I Lineage (on a global scale) is more profitable than even some modern MMO's out here in the west. In my opinion, since Ultima Online isn't even listed by EA financials, the oldest profitable MMO, on a global scale is Lineage. Otherwise I would have to say Runescape or EvE online, according to how you want to label profitability.

It's an arbitrary argument regardless. The fact that 4 of the MMO's in the list were released prior to 2000, and are still up and running, is impressive.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

It is still "potentially" because, once again, neither UO and Everquest is over.

Plus even if we are going by "your" arbitrary equation of "profit > duration" in this discussion, WoW will beat the crap out of Lineage and Lineage WILL NOT even be a close second. So either way you look at it, Lineage is second, at best.

But we are not talking about "potentially profitable", we are talking about really profitable. If we watch it from your position, than plenty of games could be considered "potentially profitable", because they have live servers and not shut down yet. The question is, is these games are making profit to actually release updates and grow in development, or they just half-dead? 

Lineage still making millions of dollars, is UO and everquest making it too? I'm doubt in it

Originally posted by XAPGames

Originally posted by Rthuth434
did RS ship before Lineage? it's gotta be one of those two. i don't know if UO meets the requirements. i know EQ is doing well but probably not old enough.

Lineage older than EQ?  I'm surprised.  I always figured LIN as an eastern EQ clone.

Hmm would appear so its came out a few months before EQ. So lineage it is if there stiull pulling a profit ifnot Everquest probaly i know there stilll pulling profits.