You're underestimating the number of people willing to pay. Like MC said, once you use money in a game, you can never go back. And once you realize how much you spend in it, you would be unwilling to leave the game.
Now, of course they would still be F2P people. But it would be hard to enter the ranks unless you give it your whole time. Which some can actually do if they become a game streamer or utuber.
But just like Wuteva, once you get a taste of money from the game videos, most likely it'll go back into the game.
Ikrr it's just that this game feels soo money grabbing, like even tho i also like to spend money in game i would feel overwhelmed by the amounts of paywalled contents and stuff. If this were a real game i feel like the reviews would mostly be negatives and there won't be millions of active players lol. Like this game literally made other gacha games feels like a saint...
Well, according to the manhwa, this game's ai feels too real, it's otherworldly (LoL). Each master has their own world and nothing is repeated. Which, if this is irl, that game company must have a computer system the size of a castle. There's no way a game this big can be played in a mobile phone, even with separate servers. So no, I don't think games like this can be THAT successful irl.
The game is soo p2w bruh... you need real money to do high rank summons, even useful functions like recording gameplay and the replay records need gems which need real money. How come there are 1 mil players??