For many, Lost Ark is the most exciting new MMORPG in 2022 – but the boss doesn’t want that many players

The big LOA ON Winter took place at the weekend. This is an event at which the Lost Ark developers, i.e. Smilegate, talk about the future of the MMORPG. The Game Director also commented on the release in the West.

What kind of event is that? The LOA ON Winter is a large event aimed at the players of the MMORPG Lost Ark. It reports on the state of the game as well as upcoming changes and plans for the future.

In addition to the new class that was announced at this event, it was also about player numbers and the release in the west.

The Game Director of Lost Ark himself, the boss of the MMORPG at Smilegate, spoke. So the statements initially have little to do with Amazon.

How many players do you want to reach? The overall number of players around the world is not very modest. Here he speaks of being able to reach 20 million registered accounts together with the release in the west.

Lost Ark is currently only released in Korea and Russia and has almost 10 million registered accounts. With the upcoming updates and the release from us, they would like to more than double this number.

However, you want to achieve this with long-term success instead of short-term hype. Lost Ark’s strategy is to come to stay.

“Korean MMORPGs are just not that popular in the West”

What is the boss’s forecast? As for the numbers at the start, you want to think more realistically. The Smilegate team expects 200,000 simultaneous players to be released in the west. That’s about a fifth of the number of players New World started out with.

But that’s not even necessary, according to the Game Director. “If we look at the numbers in Korea, we see that around 83% of the players come back at some point once they start. […] In total, we’ve even got 258 individual players logging in every day since the beta. This is fantastic.”

Long-term success is the key: The Smilegate team is convinced that it will be able to retain many players in the long term to Lost Ark. The hype at the start doesn’t have to be so exuberant, and you have to be realistic.

When asked what the boss would describe as a successful launch in the West, he says: “We will be launched in the West in February 2022. Our goal is to have 200,000 concurrent players by release. Korean MMORPGs are there [im Westen] just not that popular. If we can hold 50,000 to 70,000 simultaneous players 3 months after the release, we’ll be successful. “

He then emphasized that the release in Russia was also very successful and that the publisher was also satisfied. At this point, however, one could only speculate what numbers Amazon is hoping for the release in the West.

“We have increased our number of players sevenfold in one year”

Which numbers are still exciting? At the beginning of his presentation, the Game Director of Lost Ark talks about some numbers that affect Lost Ark. Here he is particularly good and is looking forward to the release in the west.

The Director seems particularly proud of these figures when he presents them:

• The players on the Korean server have increased sevenfold since July 2020
• The number of players on the Russian servers has increased by 170% since June this year
• Even 4 months after the event peak in June 2021, 78% of the players who played during events are still active
• Sales in the cash shop have increased 21-fold since July 2020
• As of June 2021, there are 35,320 players on the Korean server who log in every day. These are the same players who come back every day. Not about simultaneous players
• The character with the highest DPS did 2.4x more damage than the one with the lowest DPS. One of the main focuses for 2022 should therefore be on balancing.

What do you think of the numbers? Do you think Smilegate is playing poker with 200,000 simultaneously active players too high or too low at the start? Do you think the 50 to 70,000 simultaneous players after three months are realistic? Feel free to write it to us in the comments here at MeinMMO.

Not sure yet if you feel like playing the game? A veteran explains why you should look forward to the MMORPG Lost Ark – but not too much