Tower of Fantasy is a stunning cross-platform free to play open-world action MMORPG developed by Hotta Studio, a subsidiary of Perfect World, and published Globally on PC and Mobile by Level Infinite, and PlayStation by Perfect World Games.
At present there is no cross-play functionality, requiring anyone wanting to play on the PlayStation platform to start the game from scratch.
Tower of Fantasy has quite the loaded history – before launching globally, the game was riddled with hackers, exploiters, and abusers that often took advantage of known duplication bugs.
They had plagiarized Honkai impact, and preceded to act like it was an accident, they plagiarized another creators trailer, and projected blame on to a studio that they outsourced their trailer to, overall showing a severe lack of competence and humility.
2 thirds of a year later the game launched globally, and saw the exact same hacks, exploits, and duplication abuse replicated. These were all issues that had long since been fixed in the Chinese version – but the studio was too lazy to apply the necessary fixes to the global incarnation of the game in preparation of this happening.
Negligence or incompetence? Probably both.
Nevertheless, this was all fixed in subsequent patches. And while the game has firmly established a reputation as a running meme in the community – the game after reaching Domain 9, in 3.0, is a drastic improvement with very few hacks, exploits or issues.
But with 2024 just a few months from now, is Tower of Fantasy going to be worth playing? Is it worth starting? Will it even still be alive, receiving new, regular patch content? Let’s take a look.
3.2 released early in September, introducing the new Joltville section of the region into the game. It featured an expansion to the story, a new type of ball to collect, and a few new characters to obtain.
3.3 looks like it’s going to introduce the Marshville section of the region into the game, which is a frigid region covered in ice. We also have the introduction of mommy Lin Han as a character, along with other characters.
There will be an expansion to the story, leading into the upcoming 4.0 – including new events, game modes and balancing adjustments to PvP.
3.0 released on June 27th, 3.1 released on August 8th, and 3.2 released on September 5th. While we don’t have a guaranteed definitive release date for 3.3 as of writing this, it’s a safe bet to assume it’s coming in October at some point.
3.4 seems to be introducing the incredibly alluring flute Waifu Nan Ying into the game, followed by Yan Miao. There will be new skins, new events, new game modes – both PvE and PvP, and from what I read online, a potential Anime collab.
Which would be a good move, as NIKKE, another Gacha game published by Level Infinite has had numerous collabs that have all been very beneficial to its growth and success. Chainsaw Man. NieR Automata. There was no mention of Aquaville – the final region in patch 3.4, however, nor a note of its release date.
There has been no real, concrete news or information pertaining to patches beyond 3.4 – some players speculate 3.5 will feature Aquaville. It has to, right? And at least 2 new characters to pull for.
And that’s the future for the remainder of 2023. 3.3 likely to release in October, 3.4 in November, and 3.5 probably in December, unless complications arise in preparation for 4.0. 2024, of course, is going to begin and follow the game through 4.0.
But content cadence isn’t the only topic of importance. So is revenue. Revenue dictates the quality of patches, and the content released therein.
So let’s take a moment here to look over Global revenue for the last year. This is specifically Mobile revenue, using a few different revenue tracking apps online. This doesn’t include console or PC revenue, which could be double, triple, or even half the mobile earnings, nor does it include Chinese revenue.
So to reiterate, these are rough estimates and not definitively indicative of total gross revenue across every platform.
Before we discuss numbers though, let me take a moment to thank our incredible Patrons over on Patreon who allow for me to do regular videos like this, covering MMOs, Gacha games and more, every single week. You guys are incredible. Now back to the video.
In September 2022, Tower of Fantasy made $20 million dollars.
In October 2022, it made $6 million dollars.
In November 2022, it made $9 million dollars.
In December 2022, it made $6 million dollars.
In January 2023, it made $2.8 million dollars.
In February 2023, it made $2.9 million dollars.
In March 2023, it made $2.8 million dollars.
In April 2023, it made $2.7 million dollars.
In May 2023, it made $1.4 million dollars.
In June 2023, it made $1.2 million dollars.
In July 2023, it made $1 million dollars.
In August 2023, it made $1.3 million dollars.
Financially, at least from the estimates made online for mobile revenue, Tower of Fantasy isn’t doing too well. From what I recall, however, PC makes more than mobile as more players opt to make purchases via PC but it’s unconfirmed by what margin.
Making anywhere from $1-$5 million dollars per month Globally, disregarding China is definitely not a bad number though. That’s more than Azur Lane, Punishing Gray Raven and numerous other popular Global Gacha games, however they’re also not massive, open-world games and require much less of a financial investment when it comes to new content.
And Azur Lane, Punishing Gray Raven and others all make tens of millions of dollars within China, whereas Tower of Fantasy’s Chinese revenue from what you can find online seems relatively low.
Tower of Fantasy has a solid, if not relatively linear trajectory: Every 4-6 weeks release a new patch, have new Waifu to spend money to obtain, make some balance adjustments, introduce some fun new game modes – which Tower of Fantasy is really good at by the way. And the odd region every 2 or so patches.
Earlier this year I would’ve said I didn’t see much of a future for the game, but 2024 seems pretty bright. I don’t think we’re going to see a resurgence of popularity, but it’s definitely going to remain relatively stable where it is. At least until Wuthering Waves or Mugen release.