[Digital Today reporter Lee Ho-jung (이호정)] Standards used to judge the success of new releases by South Korean game companies are diversifying. In a mobile game-led market, revenue rankings on Google Play and Apple’s App Store served as key report cards. As more games launch globally and expand to PC and console, metrics to check are also changing by title, including concurrent users and sales volume, an assessment says.

◆ In a mobile-centric market, app market revenue rankings are the main metric

In the South Korean games industry, app market revenue rankings became a key success indicator alongside the expansion of the mobile game market.

As mobile games, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), took up a bigger share of sales, how high a new title climbed on Google Play and Apple’s App Store right after launch was used to judge early performance. That was because it allowed the market to quickly gauge relative monetisation performance even if a game company did not immediately disclose actual revenue.

This approach still holds for mobile games. Whether a new MMORPG enters the top tier of revenue rankings, or ranking changes after a major update, is used as a key indicator to gauge users’ spending response.

Still, as new title portfolios at South Korean game companies expand from mobile to PC and console, more games are difficult to explain using app market rankings alone.

◆ PC and console expansion diversifies report cards to include concurrent users and sales

NC’s global service for 'Aion2' is a case that shows the change.

The global version of Aion2 is served through Steam and NC’s own platform, 'Purple'. As a result, to check early performance in the global market, Steam concurrent users and sales rankings, results by country and user reviews are used together.

Among these, concurrent users quickly show early inflows and interest for PC online games. If app market revenue rankings showed spending response in mobile games, PC online games add how many users are playing at the same time as another yardstick.

Even so, Steam concurrent users are not a figure that shows all users. For games like Aion2 that also use a proprietary launcher, Purple users are not included in Steam statistics. For free-to-play games, performance needs to be assessed not only by early user scale but also by subsequent user retention and monetisation results.

The yardstick changes again for console and packaged games.

For games sold mainly on PC and console, such as Pearl Abyss’ 'Crimson Desert', cumulative sales are more directly linked to business performance. Steam sales rankings and concurrent users show early reactions, but in a model where purchases translate into revenue, actual sales volume carries greater weight.

Neowiz’s 'Lies of P' has also presented global cumulative sales as a key performance measure. For games sold across multiple platforms such as Steam, PlayStation and Xbox, it is difficult to judge overall success based only on the ranking of any single platform.

◆ What the metric is matters more than 'what rank'

As success indicators differ by game, standards for interpreting the numbers are also changing. Even with the same number of concurrent users, the meaning differs between MMORPGs and single-player games, while app market revenue rankings and packaged sales volume reflect different revenue models.

In the end, when assessing a new title’s performance, it is necessary to first look at how the game generates revenue on which platform, rather than focusing on a single ranking. As the launch stage for South Korean game companies expands from mobile to PC, console and global markets, report cards for success are also shifting from one common metric to game-by-game indicators.

An industry official said, "In the past, app market revenue rankings were used like a common standard to quickly check early performance of new titles, but now service platforms and business models differ by game." The official said, "Rather than concluding whether a title is a success based on one indicator, there is a need to look at the trends across multiple indicators together."