Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds has surpassed $100 million in player spending within its first 11 days of being live, according to Sensor Tower.
The new mobile MMORPG developed by Netmable has earned itself a very strong start with an estimated $101.3 million from across the App Store and Google Play. Additionally, the new game is only available in five markets: Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea and Taiwan.
This is even more impressive considering that Pokémon GO took 12 days to reach the $100 million milestone, showing the strength of the Ni No Kuni IP. It’s worth noting that Pokémon GO was similarly only available in select territories during its opening weeks of play.
Genshin Impact from MiHoYo and Lineage 2 Revolution from Netmarble both took 13 days to reach $100 million from player spending as well.
Japan leads
While Honor of Kings still remained the highest-grossing game globally, Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds was the number one revenue-generating mobile game outside of China.
Those in Japan contributed the largest amount of revenue at $45.6 million, or 45 per cent of that market. South Korea then followed in second with 35 per cent of worldwide spending, before Taiwan secured third position at 15.7 per cent. The App Store and Google Play both claimed 50 per cent of the total spend.
It was also estimated that Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds brought in approximately four million downloads during the same time period. South Korea placed first with 1.8 million installs (around 45 per cent), while Japan ranked second and Taiwan settled for third.
IP has always been a major factor in the industry but now plays a part more than ever. For instance, five mobile games that utilised well-known IP accumulated a combined player spend of $1.4 billion in the US across 2020.
Meanwhile, mobile games consumer spending reached $44.7 billion in the first half of 2021, representing a 17.9 per cent rise year-over-year.
