How Monster Hunter Now claimed $225m in its first year through innovation, inclusion and evolving monetisation

• To celebrate the anniversary, Monster Hunter Rise monsters have been introduced for the first time

Geolocation giant Monster Hunter Now is celebrating its first anniversary in style with limited-time quests and the launch of a brand-new Season, bringing with it multiple new monsters, an additional weapon type and even a Streamer Mode.

In one year, Niantic’s latest location-based game has generated close to $225 million in gross revenue by AppMagic estimates, easily securing the second-place spot among its titles, sitting only behind the untouchable Pokémon Go.

In fact, Monster Hunter Now claimed this silver medal in its very first month - trampling over Pikmin Bloom, Ingress, Peridot and, of course, the long-since shut down Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

Now grabbed second place by surpassing $30 million in its first 30 days, and though it’s undeniably lost momentum since, Niantic has found new methods to keep players spending.

Evolving earnings

In the beginning, the core of Monster Hunter Now’s monetisation model was its soft stamina system, requiring players to be above a certain health threshold to participate in hunts. Damage heals gradually over time or can be restored immediately with items to jump back into a hunt before it despawns - but only five free heals are given out per day. Beyond that, players have to spend hard cash on Potions to resume play.

Of course, that means the most experienced players who avoid all monster attacks aren’t affected by the stamina gate and don’t need to purchase Potions...

This system is still in place one year later but is no longer Now’s most obvious form of monetisation. Six months after launch, the title introduced a Season Pass to encourage further spending, offering bonus rewards as players hunt during a specific real-world season - from exclusive cosmetics to the hardest-to-farm resources.

Niantic offers unique storylines, quests and rewards during a Season, and when it wraps up (roughly every 90 days) a new Season begins, new events take place and players can spend on yet another Pass to maximise their gains.

The model incentivises newcomers and veterans to spend for a boost to their gear and weapons, and encourages those players who get by on five free heals per day to pay into the game regardless.

Since launch Niantic has also introduced limited hunts at real-world locations, called Hunt-a-thons, offering a series of battles against multiple monsters together with a group of players. Participation is limited to one series of battles every three hours - unless a player buys an Ultra Hunting Ticket to circumvent the cooldown period. Once again, Niantic has found a way to encourage players to spend to keep on playing.

Lastly, the development team has featured one paid-only event to date, called Dark Daydream. This event marked the first appearance of Nightshade Paolumu, exclusively for paying players who bought a special ticket, unlocking the monster for one weekend to hunt and craft new equipment from.

"Dark Daydreams is definitely one of our favourite in-game events. It was our first attempt at offering special benefits through a premium ticket," Niantic senior producer Sakae Osumi shared with us.

"We weren’t sure about the reception until the event started, but it turned out to be a success with lots of positive feedback from the community. Not to mention, we also enjoyed the event a lot, hunting monsters with all the players who participated."

Some days are bigger than others

After early enthusiasm petered out and Now dragged its heels through the cold month of February – its worst-performing month to date - the location-based game regained momentum in March during the half-year anniversary. This happened to coincide with the Monster Hunter franchise’s 20th anniversary, so plenty of in-game events were held to celebrate the two milestones, including the introduction of the Season Pass model.

The double anniversary events also overlapped with the launch of Monster Hunter Now’s second major update, The Vernal Invader, which introduced more monsters and a new weapon type on March 14th. AppMagic data suggests that this was Now’s most successful day during the event, and of spring as a whole, generating $987k in gross revenue ($691k net).

This wouldn’t be topped until June 13th when it made close to $1.2 million in a single day, coinciding with the next major update, Dancing in the Tempest. This update introduced popular main-series beasts called Elder Dragons, beginning with Kushala Daora, which typically require a group of players to take down, similar to a Raid Boss.

But the revenue spikes don’t stop there. As Niantic has continued to innovate new ideas to engage - and ultimately monetise - players, the Dark Daydreams event sparked even more spending for access to that paid-only Nightshade Paolumu.

Earnings were likely a combination of players purchasing the ticket to access the new species, as well as buying Potions to keep healthy enough to hunt them during their limited-time availability: a marrying of two monetisation models into a single event.

On July 20th, the launch day for the event, Now generated just over $1.2 million, making it the game’s most lucrative single day since January.

"We are so grateful to celebrate the first anniversary not only with our team but also with all the players in the community who have been enjoying Monster Hunter Now. It’s truly an incredible moment," Osumi added.

"The first year began in September 2023 with the global launch, bringing the excitement of hunting monsters together into the real world. Since then, we have released the first major winter update in December 2023, followed by the introduction of the Season system (with major updates every three months) in March 2024."

Keep on hunting

But Monster Hunter Now isn’t just about making money. Accessibility has been a core part of the game’s design philosophy and the development team has made "a conscious effort" to ensure rural players can access content - particularly multiplayer features.

And during its four years of development, "making a fun game" was higher priority than meeting a release deadline.

Since launch, the game’s direction has been partly decided based on fan feedback on Discord, Reddit and Twitter, with changes like increased monster spawns - from every three hours to hourly - an easy way to give players more content to engage with. Of course, this also increases the number of times a player may log in daily from the same location, and more monster hunts can mean more damage, so more spending on Potions.

Other changes over time, like the shift to grouping Hunt-a-thon players online instead of in-person, overcome multiplayer hurdles and encourages an online community more than Pokémon Go does, which instead shows a clear preference for in-person groups.

Towards the end of its first year, Monster Hunter Now also kicked off its first collaboration with a non-Monster Hunter IP, namely Mr. Beast.

As the world’s biggest YouTuber, his appearance in-game encouraged his huge audience of over 300 million subscribers to try out Now and offered a powerful new weapon for those who completed a time-limited set of quests - clearly a strategy to get those players hooked on the gameplay loop in the process.

On the horizon

Moving forward into its second year, Monster Hunter Now has just launched its third Season, Curse of the Wandering Flames, with a new Season Pass and story to discover.

For the first time, monsters have been introduced from the 2021 Nintendo Switch title Monster Hunter Rise, which released after Now began development. Beginning with the Aknosom and Magnamalo, players can hunt them down to craft new gear and weapons.

Monster Hunter 2’s Rajang has also been added, giving veteran fans another classic to hunt. And the formerly paid-exclusive Nightshade Paolumu is to be made freely available too.

Another addition for the anniversary is the brand-new cooking minigame, which will allow players to start a hunt with a maxed-out Special Gauge for bonus attack damage. Some free meat will be distributed daily, suggesting this will become yet another monetisation avenue for eager hunters.

There’s also the addition of the Heavy Bowgun, a main-series weapon that lets hunters deal massive damage from a distance, and a new Streamer Mode will allow players to hide their location data and map display.

This has significant implications towards Now’s visibility as content creators will be able to stream the game without exposing their location, once again expanding the game's outreach to broader audiences online.

"To date, we have introduced various new features, including the Season Pass, Hunt-a-thons, Elder Dragon Interception, Dimensional Link, and cooking!" Osumi added.

"There are many more things, both small and large, that we wanted to do and still want to do. We are always monitoring and listening to community feedback, and we truly appreciate the fact that so many players are enjoying our game and supporting our community.

"We are very excited about entering year two. We are keen to create more opportunities, possibly with new features, to make hunting monsters together in the real world more accessible and enjoyable for many players. Please stay tuned."

All in all, it’s clear to see Niantic hasn’t rested on its laurels with Monster Hunter Now, but has experimented with many ideas during its first year to evolve this game into one of the big players in the geolocation space.

If the anniversary event is any indication, innovations can be expected to continue into its second year, and perhaps even beyond.

And with Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds due to launch next year, the roster of beasts Now can pull from is only going to grow larger and more ferocious.