Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Loktofeit

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?"  The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage 2.

 

 Lineage 2 isnt profitable. Lineage 1 is.

My mistake. I have L2 on the brain today.

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Originally posted by evilastro
Definitely Lineage 1. It still makes 20-30% of NCSofts profit after 15 years.

Percent of profit is irrelevant when comparing this with this.

To clarify, if one company has 100 titles that make 200k each, then a 200k ttile makes up 1%

If another company has 5 titles that make 50k each, then a 50k title makes up 20%.

It's good marketing math for the 5 title company, but not real math for anything else.

It's gotta be pretty close between UO and Lineage

Lineage only managed to pull in 1.3billion lifetime. NA servers were actually shutdown due to the game being unprofitable in 2011. 

Sadly we don't have figures for UO. But box sales + expansions + cash shop sales + subscription + merchandise for 16 years should put them pretty close if nothing else. 

Originally posted by Lienhart

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Home to armchar finiance predicitions!...with absolutely no sources or facts to back up any shit!

Remind me how many of you invest?

I do. I was also programmer and tech support rep for Microstar's Indigo Investment Software, an end-of-day stock analysis and signal generation program. That said, I do get your point, though. :)

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

It's gotta be pretty close between UO and Lineage

Lineage only managed to pull in 1.3billion lifetime. NA servers were actually shutdown due to the game being unprofitable in 2011. 

 

Sadly we don't have figures for UO. But box sales + expansions + cash shop sales + subscription + merchandise for 16 years should put them pretty close if nothing else. 

If nothing else, UO, Lineage, EVE, EQ and WOW (don't shoot me for suggesting that) have proven that if you identify a section of the gaming audience and focus on supporting it, you've got a game world that will stand the test of time.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

 If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are said than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true. 

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

"really profitable" is your own criteria. The OP's assignment of "15% of the books" is equally ridiculous when comparing companies with 8 titles and other companies with 20-50 new titles every year for over 15 years.

 

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?"  The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage.

 

Well, if the information provided by a sea.shell is correct, then it really is Lineage 1, by a nose.

UO released on 24 September 1997, (NA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online
Lineage released 1. september 1997, (KR) http://m.lineage.plaync.com/board/free/381926

Originally posted by Draemos
Gemstone (currently IV) has been around since 1988 and I'm sure it accounts for a healthy portion of Simutronics income... probably because they charge out the ass in monthly subscriptions (anywhere from $15-$40) for what amounts to a game that costs next to nothing to operate.

I had no clue that was still around. I have to check that out again. Thanks!

I find the definitions being thrown about rather interesting, particularly the % of a company's income without taking into account how many games the company has or how much the company makes overall. The fact that an individual game wouldn't show up on EA's financial report isn't surprising given how many IPs and games they have, most of which would be easily be a large part of the income of the smaller publishing companies in their own right. That fact alone makes this measurement severely flawed.

As for attempting to differeniate between asian and western markets; do you really think the company cares what market their product is succesful in as long it's successful? If it's still making millions of dollars, it's still making millions of dollars, and that is all the initial criteria really asked about, not where it was making it.

longestrunning AND making most money is definately World of Warcraft

anyone who argues different must be a fan of the respective game and good in ignoring facts :)

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

 If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are said than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true. 

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

"really profitable" is your own criteria. The OP's assignment of "15% of the books" is equally ridiculous when comparing companies with 8 titles and other companies with 20-50 new titles every year for over 15 years.

 

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?"  The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage.

 

Well, if the information provided by a sea.shell is correct, then it really is Lineage 1, by a nose.

UO released on 24 September 1997, (NA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online
Lineage released 1. september 1997, (KR) http://m.lineage.plaync.com/board/free/381926

NCSoft puts the commercial launch of Lineage KR in September 1998.

Source: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/nchistory.aspx

Originally posted by Mesfenlir
wow

If the question was "most profitable long-running MMO," that would be the answer, hands down.

Originally posted by FromHell

Meridian 59

http://www.meridian59.com/

then Ultima Online

http://uo.com/

It depends on how you count.

I would say Lineage since it still rake in plenty of money after 12 years, UO and M59 are still up but I doubt you still can call them "profitable". Lineage on the other hand is still NC softs second most profitable game for 2012 after GW2 (and its most profitable own game).

Originally posted by angzt

longestrunning AND making most money is definately World of Warcraft

anyone who argues different must be a fan of the respective game and good in ignoring facts :)

The question was "What's the longest running profitable MMO?" not the most profitable long running game.

Wow is from November 2004 and several other games that rake in money still is older, including Eve and Lineage.

---

Originally posted by Loktofeit

NCSoft puts the commercial launch of Lineage KR in September 1998.
Source: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/nchistory.aspx

---

Thank you was looking for something offical, so i probably found reviews about "beta" tests of the service in the korean corner of the internet. Then that makes UO older going by release date.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

 

 If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are said than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true. 

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

"really profitable" is your own criteria. The OP's assignment of "15% of the books" is equally ridiculous when comparing companies with 8 titles and other companies with 20-50 new titles every year for over 15 years.

 

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?"  The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage.

 

Well, if the information provided by a sea.shell is correct, then it really is Lineage 1, by a nose.

UO released on 24 September 1997, (NA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online
Lineage released 1. september 1997, (KR) http://m.lineage.plaync.com/board/free/381926

NCSoft puts the commercial launch of Lineage KR in September 1998.

Source: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/nchistory.aspx

The oldest I have seen which predates any of the titles mentioned so far is Realm Online(RO). This title has been around since 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realm_Online . Still has a decent fan base. Still makes money! Is even featured here at MMORPG.com http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/56 . It still has players that visit here!

Excerpt: The Realm was launched in December 1996 for Windows PC^[1] It was designed in the tradition of graphical MUDs,^[2] before the popular usage of the terms "massively multiplayer" and "MMORPG"

Happy Times ;-D I WIN THE COOKIE!! :-D

Originally posted by Prenho
Lineage 1 still is the most profitable game from NcSoft, so, if Lineage Eternal follows the same idea of L1: open world + clan wars over resourses and politics and good pk system, I'm sure that Eternal will be the next king of NC.

But it still is not the oldest profitable MMORPG. Which is what the OP thread is about. If I wanted to read about Lineage being the oldest NC soft title I would visit the gamelist here at mmorpg with Lineage in it. No ninjaing :-D Realm Online is the oldest profitable mmorpg on the market today.

As a follow up. (RO) only has one server. Which has been maintained through the years. It has very minimal upkeep cost. It also  can use dial up. Thus all the subscription fees are most profit about said margins in the original thead. While the Original Thread gave a percentage. It did not give a minimum or maximum threshhold of what is profit. Thus (RO) would be a profitable MMORPG.