Monsters & Memories Hits 36,000 Subscribers After Early Access Launch

Monsters & Memories had a bigger Early Access launch than its team expected. In its October launch review, the developers said the old-school MMO reached just over 36,000 subscriptions after billing opened in September, well above the 10,000 to 15,000 they had planned around.

That number has already settled a bit. The team said subscriptions were sitting around 30,000 at the time of the update, with more churn expected through November. Even so, the studio called it a strong starting point for a bootstrapped project that was expecting a tough first month.

The launch wasn’t completely smooth. One server, Trem, drew a heavier crowd than expected, despite the team trying to spread players out across the available servers. The developers said the first few weeks were spent pushing hotfixes, watching the in-game economy and progression, fixing major live bugs, and keeping the servers stable under load.

The update also confirms that hiring has started. Some team members who stayed on through earlier launch delays are now being onboarded through an HR service, with the first group expected to be officially supported starting in November. The team said many developers will remain volunteers for now, but subscription revenue has let it begin paying people in the most urgent situations.

Financially, the team reported an 82.1% gross margin for October, with subscription and merch revenue combined in its current reporting. The biggest monthly cost came from payment provider fees, software, and cloud services, with one-time legal expenses also tied to going live. More detailed reporting is planned later.

Since launch, Monsters & Memories has received roughly 20 updates covering client and server optimization, tuning changes, and art fixes. The team also said a new UX/UI designer has joined, with work underway on group-focused looting controls and other interface improvements.

The game’s roadmap has been updated too. Rather than laying out a long-term marketing-style plan, the team says it wants the roadmap to better reflect short-term priorities and patch milestones as Early Access continues toward 1.0.

Further reading: Official Monsters & Memories Early Access launch review