By December 1998, "Ultima Online" had reached 100,000 subscribers, with an average simultaneous player count of 12,500 and an average weekly playtime of 20 hours. Declaring the game a hit, IGN's staff wrote that its users "pay $9.95 a month to play the game. That's a million dollars in revenue a month. Twelve million dollars a year." The game had risen to 120,000 subscribers by March 1999, and by June "Ultima Online"s global sales had surpassed 200,000 units. A writer for GameDaily described this performance as "almost like printing money." Its subscriber base continued to climb in 2000, reaching 150,000 users by February. Domestically, "Ultima Online" and its "Second Age" add-on together had sold 249,610 copies and earned revenues of $11.3 million at retail alone by early 2000, according to PC Data. Gamecenter's Mark Asher wrote at the time, "Add in its current subscriber base of 150,000 players at $10 per month, and you can see the appeal of online, fee-based games." Subscribers rose to 165,000 by March, which amounted to $1.65 million in monthly revenue, and to 250,000 by October 2000.