Netmarble’s Seven Knights Idle Adventure has been quite the hit since its global release in September, and has once again reached an impressive milestone. Just shy of two months on from the full launch, the game has generated a hefty $40 million in consumer spending.

Such earnings have placed Idle Adventure second in domestic mobile sales for the period, and it’s the only game to fall outside of the MMORPG genre among the top five rankings.

Far from idle

Idle Adventure marks the latest entry in the Seven Knights franchise, following forebears Seven Knights, Seven Knights 2 and Seven Knights Time Wanderer. The new installation is an idle RPG for mobile, developed by Netmarble Nexus and published by Netmarble.

Sensor Tower reports Idle Adventure’s $40 million has accumulated from spending via Google Play and the Apple App Store, with Netmarble’s home territory Korea contributing a gigantic chunk of the total. In fact, Korean gamers represent a 76.7% share of the game’s earnings so far, utterly dominating the likes of Japan and the US with 4.8% and 3.2% each.

Lineage M was the only game to beat Idle Adventure’s in-app purchase revenues within Sensor Tower’s observed period - September 6 (Idle Adventure’s release date) to October 20 - and it ultimately landed just ahead of Wemade’s Night Crows. Sensor Tower attributes Idle Adventure’s success to its affordable in-app purchases encouraging a drive of engagement, as opposed to relying on a few spenders with deep pockets.

Other factors include the genre itself - idle and auto-battling games have been taking off in recent years - and a connection to the pre-established Seven Knights IP. Revenues are also raised through ads, which players can pay to remove or else sit through and play for free. Importantly, the ad removal option is paid for by a monthly subscription, not a one-and-done transaction, which may be a divisive strategy for many, but it seems to be working for Idle Adventure.

Currently, Idle Adventure’s successes haven’t quite reached the franchise’s peak of Seven Knights 2, which generated $53 million in its first 45 days. However, given 2's spending occurred during the pandemic boom of 2020, there is certainly an argument to be made that Idle Adventure’s $40 million is on a similar trajectory.

And either way, Idle Adventure has proven a success in its own right, giving Netmarble a surge in shares and bolstering its status from the fifth biggest Korean mobile games publishers to the second.