Rift has Cost $50M, Sold 1M Units and Taken 600,000 Players from WOW

Trion Worlds' first MMO project Rift has become a fast growing subscription-based game since it launched in March 2011. In the recent interview with gamasutra, Trion Worlds' SVP of publishing David Reid says that they have invested $50 million into Rift, but on the other hand, the game has sold nearly 1 million units

David Reid mentions that each unit of Rift includes a 30-day subscription, and it represents real people who have bought the client, installed it, paid for it and played the game. While Rift reaches the 1 million sales milestone, there are people who question the loyalty of subscribers and the last appeal of the game, but David Reid is confident that three months in - well after the initial 30-day trial period - a lot of players are sticking with the game

Rift declares "We're Not In Azeroth Anymore" before, and this ambitious words are gradually coming true, at least Reid thinks so. He says "it was a pleasure to see that in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call, they inquired about Rift when Blizzard announced that their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million" and hints that the 600,000 people who have left WOW are in Rift now. "You can do some math... we know very well where those 600,000 people are," Reid says coyly. What's more, he's confident that the 600,000 people will not go back to WoW in a short time as he states that "I don't think they'll be getting those 600,000 people back as quick as they did from Aion, Conan, Warhammer and the like."

Although the MMO market is flooded with free-to-play games today, Reid believes that the subscription market is not dying, "we believe a quality product is going to continue to be something that gamers are willing to pay for as long as we continue to run the service as we should," says Reid. Now Trion World has 3 MMO projects at its hands: Rift is subscription-based, End of Nations is likely to be a pay-to-play game, looking from the FAQ, and the newly unveiled MMO shooter Defiance's business mode is unknown.