Before I begin, I wanted to talk about Rift and China, namely the statement flying around that Rift will never have a snowball’s chance at matching Blizzard’s subscriber numbers unless they release in China. The above statement is, of course, completely true. The issue this raises, however, is Rift’s odds at releasing in China, which don’t seem all that likely in the near future, or really ever. The main problem Rift faces is the concept of the undead, especially since the game already carried the River of Souls event, that based its entire concept around the idea of souls being plucked from the river of souls (where everyone goes at death) to serve as an undead army.
China and the undead don’t got along well, and World of Warcraft’s expansions were delayed for multiple years, following extensive censorship, before the games could be released. Skeletons are replaced by sacks of flour and scarecrows, blood is green, even undead insignia are replaced or removed outright.
Anyway, Rift is releasing in South Korea! Running through CJ E&M Games, Rift will makes it break into the east. According to Trion’s Lars Buttler:
“We take the Korean market very seriously as it is driven by innovation and growth in the online gaming space. By working with CJ E&M we are able to bring deep, immersive online gaming experiences to the east, and continue delivering quality games to gamers worldwide.”
Well hopefully Rift will take the Korean community better than some Korean companies take the western community. Rift was the top selling PC retail game in North American in March, according to NPD. We’ll see if this success can transition over to Korea.
MMO Fallout 
Two major issues.
1) Rift doesn’t even stand a chance of hitting WoW like numbers in North America or Europe, so why talk about silly things like that anyways?
2) Games developed outside the Asian market typically don’t do very well. Blizzard is the exception to this rule. Otherwise, there is a lot of racism in Asia against products from outside their culture.
1. I certainly believe it’s possible, considering the formula for Rift and World of Warcraft are so similar. I believe it was last year Blizzard announced 70% of players (subscribers, not trial users) quit before they hit level 10. If Trion can tap into the market of ex-WoW players (please, no comments about the quality of the community, that’s a topic for another discussion), they’re looking at a hefty potential userbase.
The question, of course, is figuring out why they are quitting.
2. This is true, but Blizzard did a pretty decent job of localizing the game to the Asian markets. If Trion follows the system of paying hourly, I think they have some potential, again mainly because the formulas for WoW and Rift are so similar.
Again, I tie this information off of Rift and WoW being so similar. I wouldn’t make the same statement for, say, Xsyon, Mortal Online, or Darkfall. There is a population ceiling those games hit before they’d have to abandon several core ideas to appeal to the masses.