MapleStory announces over 92 million users worldwide, 4 year anniversary
We often marvel at the sheer numbers of subscribers and users some MMOs and virtual worlds are able to reach. You can look at a title like World of Warcraft, with over 11 million subscribers and just picture a massive green tidal wave made of dollar bills sweeping over Blizzard HQ. Every month. But WoW's millions of customers, while impressive, pales in comparison with what Nexon announced this week with MapleStory: 92 million users worldwide, with 6 million users in North America alone.
Sure, comparing success stories of a subscription title with a free-to-play game is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Each of those 92 million "Maplers" probably isn't dropping $15 each month to play, but the fact remains that many of those users are paying real money for their virtual goods. The numbers we ran for MapleStory's virtual items sales in the US, roughly one year ago, had 5.9 million US users spending USD 29.3 million on these goods.
MapleStory launched on May 11, 2005, so its four year anniversary is only days away. The game is currently celebrating its anniversary with special events, anniversary items, and the ability for users to transform into one of MapleStory's monsters for the duration of the festivities. The MapleStory fourth anniversary events began on May 7th and will last through June 16th.
