Fun Facts From NCSoft's Q1 2010 Report


I love earnings reports, more so because I am a huge number crunching nerd, but because it gives us an occasional glimpse into how MMO developers are doing. NCsoft finally got around to filing their Q1 reports, and there is plenty of information to be found, namely in what game is doing better than others.

I often hear complaints about NCsoft pushing North American and European players to the side, and quite frankly they might have good reason. The breakdown of NCsoft’s income paints a picture as to why NA and EU may take a back seat to other regions.

  1. Korea: 65%
  2. Japan: 11%
  3. N. America: 8%
  4. Europe: 7%
  5. Taiwan: 4%

Korea is still NCsoft’s biggest market by far, with NCsoft making almost as much from royalties (the remaining 6%) as they do from N. America or Europe.

As far as game sales themselves go, NCsoft pointed out at the top of the page that Lineage is continuing its growth momentum, which is quite impressive for a game hitting its twelfth birthday this September.

  1. Aion: 71,235
  2. Lineage: 47,507
  3. Lineage 2: 29,662
  4. City of Heroes: 3,348
  5. Others: 3,255
  6. Guild Wars: 2,382

Sales are down 5% from the last quarter, however the trend is continuing upward on a year over year scale. Profits have also increased due to what NCsoft referred to as cost cutting programs to improve efficiency. Arenanet looks like they are in some hot water, as their quarterly sales are down 33% from last quarter, and are plummeting on a year-by-year basis of 47%, making it the lowest operating NCsoft at this point. NCEurope did the worst this quarter with a 50% drop a sales, but is still riding a 180% year on year growth.

A few of the titles are disappointing, yet not all that unsurprising. Guild Wars, considering its age, is getting to the point where most of the people who will purchase it have already purchased it. Not to mention Guild Wars doesn’t exactly have a subscription to ride on for cash. City of Heroes is getting on in its age, although the game and its community are still going very strong. Lineage and Lineage 2 are still big sellers in Korea, no surprises there.

NCsoft is looking at a lot of potential in the next few years, what with their upcoming titles. Aion still appears to be selling strong, although the recent announcement of server mergers…well that’s for another story.

Fun Facts From NCSoft’s Q1 2010 Report


I love earnings reports, more so because I am a huge number crunching nerd, but because it gives us an occasional glimpse into how MMO developers are doing. NCsoft finally got around to filing their Q1 reports, and there is plenty of information to be found, namely in what game is doing better than others.

I often hear complaints about NCsoft pushing North American and European players to the side, and quite frankly they might have good reason. The breakdown of NCsoft’s income paints a picture as to why NA and EU may take a back seat to other regions.

  1. Korea: 65%
  2. Japan: 11%
  3. N. America: 8%
  4. Europe: 7%
  5. Taiwan: 4%

Korea is still NCsoft’s biggest market by far, with NCsoft making almost as much from royalties (the remaining 6%) as they do from N. America or Europe.

As far as game sales themselves go, NCsoft pointed out at the top of the page that Lineage is continuing its growth momentum, which is quite impressive for a game hitting its twelfth birthday this September.

  1. Aion: 71,235
  2. Lineage: 47,507
  3. Lineage 2: 29,662
  4. City of Heroes: 3,348
  5. Others: 3,255
  6. Guild Wars: 2,382

Sales are down 5% from the last quarter, however the trend is continuing upward on a year over year scale. Profits have also increased due to what NCsoft referred to as cost cutting programs to improve efficiency. Arenanet looks like they are in some hot water, as their quarterly sales are down 33% from last quarter, and are plummeting on a year-by-year basis of 47%, making it the lowest operating NCsoft at this point. NCEurope did the worst this quarter with a 50% drop a sales, but is still riding a 180% year on year growth.

A few of the titles are disappointing, yet not all that unsurprising. Guild Wars, considering its age, is getting to the point where most of the people who will purchase it have already purchased it. Not to mention Guild Wars doesn’t exactly have a subscription to ride on for cash. City of Heroes is getting on in its age, although the game and its community are still going very strong. Lineage and Lineage 2 are still big sellers in Korea, no surprises there.

NCsoft is looking at a lot of potential in the next few years, what with their upcoming titles. Aion still appears to be selling strong, although the recent announcement of server mergers…well that’s for another story.

True Games Vs Petroglyph: Development Continues


Petroglyph Has Cajones

As I mentioned earlier this week, the Fates (mortals) in Mytheon are having quite a hard time. Not only do they have their original task of attempting to bring down the gods, but now they must take down an even greater foe: The publisher. Citing consistent delays and unreasonable requests for funding, True Games Interactive, a company still in its toddler stage (founded January 2008) and has been publishing Warrior Epic. Now, in my normal fashion, I won’t be bashing Warrior Epic, but I will point out that my trek to the WE forums found that only five out of the sixteen forum categories have had a post in the past week, with six having no posts since April. Apart from that, my only company were forum bots from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Baidu.

Petroglyph Games, noted defendant and developer, is being accused of not patching the title, and holding the source code hostage. True Games announced that they are moving full steam ahead with the title’s current beta process.

“Mytheon will proceed through Open Beta and launch officially in the near future. We cannot provide more details at this time. Players and fans of Mytheon will not be affected in any way. We are committed to delivering a fun and unique game play experience with the release of Mytheon.”

Best of luck to Mytheon in the future. It’s time to slay some gods!

Marvel Super Hero Squad Online Trailer: D'awww


Hmm...

I’m writing this next sentence not only because it’s true, but because I know at least one hardcore Marvel fan is going to have a stroke after reading it: Who’s a cute little alcoholic? You are, little Tony Stark, yes you are.

The trailer I mentioned earlier this week for Marvel Universe Online, I mean Super Hero Squad Online, has arrived.

What we know of the game so far is that it likely follows the television show closely. The heroes are fighting the villains, both sides searching for the shards of an ancient and powerful sword. Throw in some jokes about Wolverine slicing bread, toasted over The Flame’s fiery body, and Dr. Doom throwing a temper tantrum, and voila! You have something.

And if the medics have arrived and are in need of assistance, you can mention to the gentleman/lady that this is not the Marvel Universe MMO. Whatever it is, expect more news in the coming months.

Super Hero Squad is being developed by Gazillion Entertainment, who you may know from the upcoming Lego Universe, Jumpgate MMO, and the defunct Auto Assault.

Marvel Super Hero Squad Online Trailer: D’awww


Hmm...

I’m writing this next sentence not only because it’s true, but because I know at least one hardcore Marvel fan is going to have a stroke after reading it: Who’s a cute little alcoholic? You are, little Tony Stark, yes you are.

The trailer I mentioned earlier this week for Marvel Universe Online, I mean Super Hero Squad Online, has arrived.

What we know of the game so far is that it likely follows the television show closely. The heroes are fighting the villains, both sides searching for the shards of an ancient and powerful sword. Throw in some jokes about Wolverine slicing bread, toasted over The Flame’s fiery body, and Dr. Doom throwing a temper tantrum, and voila! You have something.

And if the medics have arrived and are in need of assistance, you can mention to the gentleman/lady that this is not the Marvel Universe MMO. Whatever it is, expect more news in the coming months.

Super Hero Squad is being developed by Gazillion Entertainment, who you may know from the upcoming Lego Universe, Jumpgate MMO, and the defunct Auto Assault.

Yet Another Korean MMO Shuts Down


NIDA Online is a Korean free-to-play MMO. For some of you, that is enough to avoid this game like the plague, and for others it is enough to question: Omali why are you bothering reporting on yet another cookie-cutter MMO shutting down. Why is this significant? NIDA Online opened in September 2009, around the same time as Aion, Champions Online, and Fallen Earth. So, from start to finish, NIDA Online lasted slightly less than eight months.

Now I have never played NIDA, so I’ll leave the quips about the game’s quality to another person, but eight months says a lot. Consider, for instance, the fact that two very widely panned MMOs are still going rather strong to this day, after two years of being live (I’ll leave you to fill in what those two MMOs released in 2008 with high preorder numbers are). NIDA’s run even knocks out FURY, the only MMO we are aware of to fire off emails to its ex-players calling them losers. FURY, for reference, had a ten month life span.

Perhaps now Gamekiss can focus on its other riveting titles, such as the Freestyle basketball MMO.

All Points Bulletin: Customizable Death


All Points Bulletin

All Points Bulletin is all about customization: The more we learn about the game, the more options for making your cop or villain unique come to light. Everything from changing the details on your car, customizing your weapons, your character, your radio, and even subscription allows you to tailor to your style of play.

But we ask: What methods can I use to taunt my opponents using the same method of customization? Well Chris Collins has the answer.

“Players can create what we call death themes, so every time that you kill a player they’re forced to listen to your music,”

Looking forward to being killed by someone and hearing “We’re no strangers to love…” or ten seconds of some teen shouting expletives through his cracking voice.

More on APB as it appears.

Mortal Online: June 9th! We Swear!


Oh Henrik...

Mortal Online, like many indie MMOs, is no stranger to delays. Out of a rabid attempt at fighting back the de-synchronization issues that have plagued Mortal Online for months, Star Vault has pushed back the title month after month until they could finally defeat this beast that knows no enemy. Luckily, however, Star Vault has appeared to come out victorious, announcing that:

“With the new engine build, we have finally solved the desync issues we suffered from in the old network solution. Earlier on we lacked the proper tools to be able to track all packages sent from server to client, but with the new software now in place we have managed to eliminate the problem. A lot of internal QA testing as well as positive feedback from our Beta testers confirm the result.”

Excellent! The open beta period is over, however, and only those who purchased licenses will be allowed into the server. Open beta discount ends on Monday, however, so now is the time to act.

Star Vault has set a date of June 9th for Mortal Online to go gold, and I will be neither the first nor the last to say: FINALLY!

Note: Never write a headline at 1am. Fixed July to June.

Fallen Earth: Now With Achievements!


Watch me get all the points

Log Entry for the second week of May 2051: After my most recent encounter, I have determined it best to find myself a suitable permanent residence. Traveling for miles over these burned out plains, I pass by numerous, if not countless, houses and buildings in varying states of disrepair. Entire sides of the buildings gone, if not completely crumbled. In my passings, I find plenty of the various flora and fauna of the wilderness, and although I am not exactly living in style, there has yet to be a point where I become too hungry to walk.

But I write this because one day as I was foraging vegetables, a man approached me. Dressed in ragged clothing similar to my own, I presumed him to be the owner of the farm, readying my pistol only to find some cosmic force preventing me from willingly drawing my only means of defense. The man, however, simply approached me, extended his arm, and shook my own. When he spoke, I felt myself awash in heat, his voice reminding me of the depictions of God on the various radio shows, yet not as low pitched. He said;
“You have proven yourself to be a masterful survivalist, and you have foraged more than a thousand fruits, vegetables, and various other plants. For this, I want to give you a special reward.”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved an egg, which I immediately recognized as a prairie chicken egg, and number of chips reminiscent of my own poker-chip currency. Handing each individually to me, he turned and was gone in the blink of an eye. I will still remember his departing words;
“Keep hold of those. You will find use for them in the near future.”

Far overdrawn introductions aside, Fallen Earth has finally introduced achievements! The first batch of achievements, totaling five hundred,  have been split into five categories of varying difficulty, and include everything from PvP encounters to killing bosses, scavenging, and crafting. The achievements are retroactive. And if you did not catch it from the above story, a second achievement pack is on the way, bringing with it rewards for achievements. The vanity pet reward system is really just speculation on my part.

Achievements are an interesting line in MMOs. On one hand, you have people who will grind out achievements just to say they got them all, even if that includes killing ten thousand of one particular NPC (I’m looking at you, Champions Online). On the other hand, you have people who absolutely hate the idea of grinding out achievements for rewards. Somewhere in the middle you have the casual gamer, who tries to go for the easiest achievements first and then sporadically goes up from there.

Achievements, if done right, can add a whole new level of involvement to an MMO. Warhammer Online is one of the few MMOs to take the achievement book and turn it into an integrated part of the game, the Tome of Knowledge, that gives you a lot of information on the world and the characters who inhabit it.

And to answer your question: Yes, I will be opening every Fallen Earth article with my little ongoing story.

Marvel MMO Is Adorable!


D'awww :3

Iron Man! Who wants his milk and cookies? Or would that be gin and tonic? Come give me a big ol’ hug, and then it’s nap time! So your expression right now is likely one of three: You either 1.) would like to know why I am coochy-cooing Tony Stark, 2.) recognize the picture and know exactly where this is going, or 3.) are completely lost.

Back in 2007, Marvel launched the Marvel Super Hero Squad, an initiative at advertising the iconic comic book characters to children. The action figure line shored up a kid’s show that is currently airing called the Super Hero Squad Show, featuring a whole host of Marvel characters in itself, doing exactly what you would expect a kid’s show like this to do: Make references far too old for its intended audience (Thor shouting “It’s hammer time.) and making the kind of jokes that kids love (Wolverine cutting his toenails with his claws, Thor using his warhammer as an extender to wash the wall, etc). Also Tony Stark is not an alcoholic to my knowledge.

Many of us have been waiting for the news on the Marvel MMO, and as many of you see where I’m going at this point, it’s finally here! This website popped up, and Gazillion Entertainment has finally announced Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, the MMO where you have the opportunity to harness the power of your favorite Marvel Superheroes, from Spiderman to Iron Man, and everyone in between.

Now, of course, this is not the Marvel MMO most of you have been waiting for, and luckily Gazillion still has that listed as its own game on their website. It will certainly not be as adorable as this little MMO, however.

More on Marvel Super Hero Squad Online as it appears.