Uma Musume Pretty Derby has topped the Apple App Store and Google Play charts on the day of release in South Korea, making an estimated ₩3 billion ($2.3 million) within the first 24 hours.
On Google Play, the game was ranked number one, based on a variety of metrics such as the number of downloads and reviews, whereas on the App Store it came first in both the popular games and highest-earning games charts.
The game is not the kind to see a concentration of revenue in early stages, so its revenue decrease will come slowly.
Kim Ha-jeong
The game, developed by Tokyo studio Cygames, tasks players with raising, training, and racing their own uma musume – a girl/horse hybrid with equine ears, tail, and speed.
Racing in a field of MMORPGs
Originally released in Japan in February 2021, where it achieved $965 million in sales in its first year, this game’s success is an oddity within the South Korean market. Analysts say that the character-collecting aspect of the game is a factor in its success and that such mechanics may change the country’s mobile gaming scene. All three of the highest-grossing games of May 2022 – Lineage W, Lineage M, and Odin: Valhalla Rising – are MMORPGs.
“Uma Musume Pretty Derby had an impressive start by climbing to the top of the iOS app store chart faster than Lineage W,” said Kim Ha-jeong, an analyst at Daol Investment and Securities. “The game is not the kind to see a concentration of revenue in early stages, so its revenue decrease will come slowly.”
Uma Musume: Pretty Derby – a title so dominant, it was all but single-handedly responsible for CyberAgent’s ranking in the 2021 Top 50 Game Makers – marks the latest in a string of successes for Cygames, and marks an unusual distribution move, with Granblue Fantasy, another Cygames financial powerhouse, still awaiting an international release.