Mobile Version Of Moonlight Blade Rakes In $50 Million In Its First Week In China

Making $50 million in a week is a pretty good sign for any game, even one released in China, with its plus-sized potential audience. That's what happened for the mobile release of Moonlight Blade, according to the South China Morning Post, setting a record following its Oct. 16 launch on the Chinese Apple Store.

Described as "Tencent's answer to World of Warcraft," we've seen the game as being developed by Nexon, which is probably employing Tencent as a publishing partner in China. The PC version has been mentioned several times over the past few years in Nexon's financial statements, though usually having a lackluster performance.

The $50 million shattered the previous record for first-week mobile MMORPG revenue of $28.3 million, set by Perfect World when it launched last year. The next four games on the list all brought in over $20 million in their first weeks, making Moonlight Blade a true outlier.

This successful mobile launch will likely be mentioned in Nexon's upcoming Q3 2020 financial statement in a few weeks, though the direct results of it won't be seen until next quarter. As for what it means for gamers in the West who are anticipating the game -- something Nexon has been hinting at for over two years -- it can only be construed as a positive sign, though it might result in us receiving a mobile experience rather than one on PC.