by ByteStixBlue Archive in 2023
Blue Archive is one of the most popular Anime RPGs of the last couple years. It released on November 8th, 2021, and has since gone on to garner a following incomparable to almost any other game in the genre.
This is mostly attributed to its Waifu’s, its story, and its engaging gameplay. And also the fact that as of October 2022, the studio decided to operate 2 separate versions of the game concurrently, one catering to normal gamers, and one catering to cultured degenerates like you and me.
But how popular is it? Has the game been growing, or is the game in a perpetual state of decline since its release 2 years ago? That’s what we’re here today to take a look at. To see how Blue Archive is currently doing in 2023.
Blue Archive had quite the large launch in November 2021. 1.2 million players downloaded and tried the game out – earning a total of $9 million dollars within 3 weeks.
For a new release – and a Nexon release at that, those are some pretty impressive numbers. However, when compared to more recent releases like Tower of Fantasy that made $34 million, Memento Mori which made $15 million, and NIKKE which saw an overwhelming $100 million… the numbers might seem a little low.
But initial numbers can be deceiving, Tower of Fantasy being a prime example of this, declining from $34 million to $5 million per month and 5 million players to 200,000 in a mere 4 months – a drop of 95%.
December saw an expected decrease – 340,000 new downloads and $5 million dollars. Honestly not nearly as large a drop as people were anticipating. At this point, the game was just finding its footing, and didn’t have any events ongoing other than the launch events accompanying its release.
January 2022 was where things really began to take form.
The game at this juncture had been out for several months, a large number of players had completed everything the game had to offer, and Blue Archive saw its first banner recruitment event, featuring Cherino and Karin running through the 25th, then Azusa, Hanako, and Hibiki from the 25th through February 8th.
It still managed to accumulate an additional 110,000 new downloads and $2.8 million dollars in earnings, but players were beginning to notice the numbers were not stabilizing at all.
February, naturally, should’ve been a more financially successful month than January – with the New Year typically having a lower rate of spending due to everyone’s spending habits during Christmas.
Admittedly.. that was not the case. Even with the previous banners running, Hifumi and Koharu’s banners beginning February 8th, and the Mashiro and Hifumi’s swimsuits being available from February 22nd, Blue Archive managed to acquire another 100,000 new downloads and $2.8 million dollars in earnings.
This was the first time in 4 months that the game had stabilized, though, and almost $3 million dollars per month is a fantastic place to settle.
March continued to be equally as successful for the studio. Hifumi had her swimsuit, Iori had her swimsuit, Hina had her swimsuit.
Who’d have thought? Swimsuit Gacha helps maintain not only a healthy playerbase, but also keeps them spending egregious amounts of money, bringing in yet another 120,000 new downloads and $2.7 million dollars.
Players were overjoyed after seeing April‘s statistics. Not only were there new banners – featuring Shiroko Riding, Shun Young, Kirino and Saya Casual, but the game saw an additional 100,000 new players and $2.8 million dollars in total revenue.
This was 6 months after launching. To put this into perspective, Path to Nowhere and Tower of Fantasy continued to decline month after month. Blue Archive managed to stabilize after month 3 and for the 3 months preceding month 3, maintained a steady influx of new players and income.
May saw an uptick in not only new players, but also earnings, with 120,000 new downloads and $2.9 million dollars.
I’m sure both Neru, Asuna and Karin’s Bunny Girl outfits had something to do with that. They were pretty divine, and are the source of a lot of my Blue Archive thumbnails. Natsu and Mari were also available for pick up.
June saw much the same as previous months, a small bump down to $2.8 million dollars earned but still saw 120,000 new players download the game. June admittedly didn’t see much in the way of banners – the Hatsune Miku collab event and Ako, which only ran for 2 days in June, following into July.
Even with minimal events going on and very little to spend money on, players continued to deplete their savings uncontrollably.
Unfortunately I don’t have images as reference for the month of July, but July was the first large spike of the year, seeing 150,000 new downloads in total, and $5.5 million dollars.
Just shy of doubling the previous month of June. July saw the Cherino, Chinatsu and Nodoka Hot Spring banners. Evidently, the hot spring outfits were even more popular than the swimsuits.
For the remaining months I’ll be including both Global and Japanese – albeit separately, so you can get a gauge of the game’s success as a whole.
August saw the game making $1 million dollars, and acquire 90,000 new downloads Globally. Including Japan, it made $11.2 million dollars and acquired 210,000 new downloads.
Global saw a very large decline in the month of August, even though players received the Aru, Mutsuki and Serika New Year banners. Evidently they didn’t have the same appeal as the hot springs banners.
September saw a return to form, with 130,000 new downloads and $2.7 million dollars earned Globally. Honestly, I have no idea why August did so poorly with regards to revenue. But you can bet they don’t want a repeat performance.
I’m guessing the release of Wakamo, Sena, Chihiro and Mimori, along with reruns featuring Izuna, Shizuko, Koharu and Haruna were largely responsible for the increase.
Including Japan, the game saw over 200,000 new downloads and $7.2 million dollars.
October saw the game reach gargantuan heights, earning more money than it has ever made with the combined total of Japan and Global, at $13.5 million dollars and 200,000 new downloads.
Worth noting is that Japan made $11.3 million dollars with Global bringing in $2.2 million of that total. A bit of a decline Globally, but Japan really carried the game. Or carries, is a better term I guess, as you’ll no doubt find out shortly.
October saw the release of Hinata, Ui, and Marina, along with reruns of Cherino, Iori, Momoi and Midori.
Blue Archive saw yet another decline both Globally and within Japan in the month of November. $1.5 million dollars and 110,000 new downloads Globally, with Japan bringing in $4 million dollars and 20,000 new downloads.
Where Global tends to be fairly stable – at 1.5 to 2.5 million per month, roughly, Japan seems to differ by quite a significant margin, from a few million to tens of millions. Which is honestly fascinating.
November saw the release of Miyako, Saki, Tsurugi, Miyu, Kaede, and Iroha, along with reruns of Azusa, Mashiro and Hifumi’s Swimsuit banners.
Blue Archive saw quite the increase again in December. Partly due to players spending large sums of what they received from their parents? Maybe partly due to the release of Tsukuyo, Misaki, Hiyori, and the Yuzu rerun?
Either way, Blue Archive managed a grand total of $12 million dollars and 150,000 new downloads, with Japan pulling in $9 million of that, and Global with $3 million. Only at 2 points in the entirety of 2022 did Blue Archive manage to acquire over $3 million dollars Globally.
As is evident, Blue Archive is far from being a dead game. On the contrary, this game is one of the most popular Gacha games around the world, largely due to the devs knowing what their players want, and actually acquiescing to those requests.
Blue Archive is an incredibly fun game – it’s deep, it’s rich, and it provides players a largely different type of game to what’s traditionally found in the genre.
Earnings and new players have been stable throughout the entirety of 2022 – and it shows absolutely no signs of slowing down in 2023. So if you’ve been putting off playing Blue Archive, this is your chance to.
