
(I apologize for the outdated screenshot. I will update with a graph once I’m in front of a real computer.)
NCSoft has released their first quarterly report for 2013, and I’m sure we are all wondering how Guild Wars 2 will perform following the initial rush, so let’s dive in. Sales remained strong in 2013 thanks to Guild Wars 2, Aion, and Lineage. Profit is understandably down since last quarter’s launch of Guild Wars 2, however NCSoft’s year over year figures are amazing: 31% higher sales, 348% increased profits, 256% pre-tax income, and 322% net income over Q1 2012.
Lineage 1 continues to be NCSoft’s big seller, consisting of 38% of the total game sales in Q1, with Guild Wars 2 at 21% and Aion at 16%. Aion and Lineage saw an increase in sales quarter over quarter while Lineage II, Guild Wars, and Blade & Soul saw a mild to heavy loss. NCSoft as a parent company has thankfully recovered from being in the red last quarter for pre-tax income and net income.
Korea remains NCSoft’s largest market at 64%, with North America and Europe dropping by about half to 13% and 8% respectively, Japan’s 7% percentage share remained the same even though sales dropped. Sales in Taiwan increased slightly, remaining at 1%. Royalties dropped about one third in total, remaining at the 6% percentage value from the last quarter.
As usual, Guild Wars is bundled in with the “other” and is not represented by its own category. For legal reasons, I must remind you that these results are un-audited and may be subject to change during the auditing process.
I do not think NCSoft will have any good market growth in the West just because of the lost confidence from cancelling COH (among other things).