Is in the process of reversing them.
Tag: Guild Wars
Mike O’Brien Leaves ArenaNet
Mike O’Brien has announced today that he is departing ArenaNet to create a new startup studio. The notice was given via the official Guild Wars 2 website with Mike stating that he wishes to “go back to the beginning and make small games again.”
We couldn’t have known then the extent of the journey we were embarking on or all the wonderful and talented people who would join us along the way. For the past two decades we’ve gotten to work with brilliant developers and advisors, we’ve enjoyed an amazing relationship with the Guild Wars community, and were able to pursue the games of our dreams.
I’ve appreciated every moment of it. But the time has come for me to take a step back. Next week I’ll join some of my friends in forming a new studio. We’ll go back to the beginning and make small games again.
O’Brien is one of the original founders of ArenaNet after leaving Blizzard in 1999, and has held a few titles on Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 over the years. His announcement can be found at the official website.
Source: ArenaNet
Guild Wars 2: The Icebrood Saga Prologue Is Here
Today marks the launch of the next phase in the Guild Wars 2 living story. The prologue sets up the story for season five and introduces a new cast of characters for the Pact Commander to meet as they investigate a new threat.
The Icebrood Saga is a totally new story in the world of Guild Wars 2. After Season Four’s thrilling conclusion in which Dragon’s Watch finally defeated Kralkatorrik, elder dragon of Crystal and Fury, it is a time of great celebration. But a shadow of dread grows over the festivities as whispers from the Far Shiverpeaks indicate Jormag, another of Tyria’s elder dragons, is emerging from its slumber and luring charr and norn warriors under its thrall. A new cast of characters take center stage as the Pact Commander and crew investigate the looming conflict that threatens the world’s snowy reaches.
NCSoft Reports Growth For Fourth Quarter 2017
NCSoft today released their fourth quarter results for 2017 and the company has posted increased earnings across the board over last year. Sales, profits, and income grew over 80% over the same period in 2016 fueled primarily by the company’s massive success in the mobile market and the launch of the latest expansion for Guild Wars 2. Mobile sales dropped 41% over the last quarter as the launch fervor of Lineage M dies down, while Guild Wars 2 gained a 73% growth over the same period.
For the year of 2017, mobile sales accounted for 57% of total earnings while Lineage 1 dropped 59% with much of that revenue being players transferring to Lineage M. Revenues from Korea and royalties grew massively while the market share from US/Europe, Japan, and Taiwan decreased slightly. Fourth quarter earnings from the US/Europe did grow despite the overall yearly drop due to sales of Guild Wars 2 and its expansion.
(Source: NCSoft)
Mobile Drives Explosive Sales For NCSoft In Third Quarter
NCSoft’s third quarter results are in, and the results are incredible. Thanks to strong performances in the mobile sector, the Korean developer/publisher has posted record sales and profits, as can be seen in the chart above. Mobile gaming now makes up 82% of NCSoft’s sales figures, posting 551 billion won in sales ($491 million USD) in just one quarter.
The popularity of NCSoft’s mobile titles in Korea has driven its sales up over 260% over the last quarter while Guild Wars 2 saw revenue increase 50% from sales of the latest Guild Wars 2 expansion. Lineage II, Aion, and Blade & Soul all saw their revenues drop slightly while Lineage experienced a small increase in sales. Lineage II Revolution expansion overseas and strong performance of Blade & Soul in China also helped with royalty revenue.
(Source: NCSoft)
Mobile Dominates NCSoft Quarterly Report
NCSoft’s second quarter finances have been released and they are quite a doozy. While sales grew 8% both quarterly and over last year, profit and income both dropped 56% and 66% respectively thanks to increased labor costs and marketing increases. Just how much? 370%, from 5.1 billion KRW in Q2 2016 to 24.1 billion in 2017. Similarly, labor costs jumped 24% and “variable costs” went up 186%, due in part to a 244% increase in royalty payments. Ouch.
On the game’s side of the report, mobile has dominated NCSoft’s revenue reports and has become the largest sector by a wide margin, even against Lineage which continued to drop in revenue thanks to a lack of promotion over the second quarter. Every other title in NCSoft’s library (as noted below) also dropped by some factor in revenue during this period, with the sale of mobile games making up for their shortcomings. The launch of Lineage M, the mobile Lineage port, is also to thank for a drop in Lineage revenue as some players made the jump over to mobile.
Guild Wars 2 is expected to receive a substantial bump thanks to the impending launch of its next expansion. The full report can be found over at the NCSoft website
NCSoft’s Q3 Finances Are Here: Wildstar, Wildstar, Wildstar
NCSoft’s latest quarterly reports are here, and that means it’s time to speculate on the future of City of Heroes, or Wildstar depending on what year you live in. Financially, NCSoft did pretty well in the third quarter, with sales up 11% over last year, profit up 29%, pre-tax income up 22%, and net income up 56%. As I said last year, the third quarter is the one where sales generally drop as developers run less promotions and everything is gearing up toward a higher fourth quarter. If the fourth quarter does worse than the third, you’re in bad shape. In consideration of the normal drop off from Q3 to Q4 coupled with some of the events that took place last quarter, I find it unlikely that anyone at the NCSoft offices are running around with their heads on fire.
So let’s talk about game performance, since NCSoft is virtually the only major publisher to post this kind of specific data. Lineage, while it did see a drop in income this quarter, continues to grow year over year as does Blade & Soul (although quarterly sales have been dropping). Lineage 2 showed the strongest growth for the quarter, while Guild Wars 2 continues to slump in sales following the fervor over its first expansion launch.
Now it’s time to talk about Wildstar. It sounds like a broken record at this point, but Wildstar has hit its lowest point in sales. Wildstar’s previous low was $1.13 million USD back before the free to play launch. Right now the game sits at approximately $940,000.
NCSoft CFO Yoon Jae-soo discussed NCSoft’s titles and their futures. Lineage, currently enjoying major success, is expected to continue rising in sales with a growth trajectory and a fourth quarter increase driven by new servers launched last year. Lineage 2, meanwhile, is showing a stable upward trend and is expected to perform better in 2016 compared to 2015. Blade & Soul is performing soundly with stable performance in both regions and is expected to show stable growth going into next year. As for Guild Wars 2, Arenanet continues development on a second expansion pack which will give a boost in sales.
Over on the Lineage Eternal side, signups are now open for the closed beta…in Korea. When asked about their development strategy, Yoon Jae-soo responded that NCSoft’s strategy with Lineage Eternal involves lowering system requirements so that the game can function on a variety of systems while making it “less challenging and less difficult” for new players who aren’t as familiar with the game. As for Lineage M, a mobile port of Lineage, the team expects to have something to show in the first quarter while not anticipating much in the way of migration from Lineage players.
Continued coverage of NCSoft’s finances will resume with NCSoft’s Q4 release in February.
NCSoft: All Key IPs Showed Stable Sales Last Quarter
NCSoft has released their second quarter results and the news is good, even for those of you who play Wildstar. The Korean developer published a 28% boost in operating profit over last year with a 27% bump in pre-tax income and a 56% increase in net income. US and EU shares of NCSofts revenues plummeted, shedding a third of its value while Japan grew slightly as did Taiwan. According to NCSoft’s reports, while Blade & Soul grew heavily year over year thanks to its launch in the west, recent performance has seen a drop in royalties coming from the Chinese division.
On the game’s front, Lineage continues to sell more than virtually every other game in NCSoft’s library combined, with Aion and Guild Wars 2 taking a hit. Guild Wars 2, you can see, is suffering heavily from a content drought and subsequently saw its revenues fall flat over the past quarter. Based on the success of Heart of Thorns, it makes sense for Arenanet to adopt a strategy similar to World of Warcraft, living off of gem and microtransaction sales with small updates filling the gap between large, probably as-close-to-annual-as-they-can-get big expansion releases. The goal, according to NCSoft, is to decrease the amount of time between expansion releases to keep momentum up, however no further details have been discussed.
Aion, meanwhile, is performing fine. It may seem like a bad hit from the outside, but NCSoft has stated its expectations put the game within the 17 to 20 billion Won range, the game merely performed on the lower end of expectations. No one in the NCSoft offices is running around with their hair on fire over this news, however the game does have a major update coming that they expect will bring in increased revenue in the fourth quarter.
Wildstar, meanwhile, grew thanks to a launch on Steam introducing the free to play MMO to thousands of new eyes. Peak players fell off after the first month with a peak of 2,700 in July compared to 5,200 in June. Wildstar’s long term performance following its free to play revival and Steam launch will have to be observed, but it would be bad business for anyone at NCSoft to anticipate sales higher than 3 billion Won ($2.7 million USD) per quarter. Now that the team has a more realistic idea on where the game’s cash ceiling is, they can budget appropriately and NCSoft can figure out where they want to go with the IP.
Nexon’s upcoming list of releases includes Lineage Eternal as well as numerous mobile games including several based off of the Lineage franchise, increasing marketing costs and naturally boosting revenues. When asked about the release of Lineage Eternal, NCSoft’s response was…some information. According to the investor call, development is on schedule however there isn’t any concrete information on the closed beta. The team believes that the most effective timing would be around the holiday break period, so Korean gamers should mark their calendars for late November. The game is presently in the polishing stage.
Blade & Soul Mobile did not perform as well as anticipated.
Incidentally, NCSoft completely glossed over Wildstar in discussing each game’s performance in the investor call, lumping it in with the “other” category. Make of that what you will. Lineage Revolution is expected to have a November launch.
(Source: NCSoft, NCSoft investor call)
NCSoft Updated Timeline
It’s been three years since MMO Fallout last published the NCSoft Timeline, and it’s about time for an update. As it was back in 2013, the graph shows NCSoft’s timeline of support for their major MMOs, from their date of launch to their current state. Some figures may seem innaccurate as they start at the earliest launch, that being in Korea.
I plan on running more charts like this in the future.
(Source: MMO Fallout)
NCSoft Posts Q4 Report: Wildstar Revenues Climb
NCSoft has posted their fourth quarter reports for 2015, and the results are a general mixture of the good and the bad. As you can see from the chart above, while figures were pretty solid across the board over the third quarter, revenue and profit dropped notably over the same period last year. NCSoft pits the majority of the loss on overseas royalties, but that overall the company is growing in profit thanks to a balanced growth from overall IPs.
On the games front, every single title in NCSoft’s library saw growth in the last quarter, including Wildstar. Lineage and Lineage 2, as well as Blade & Soul, grew thanks to content updates and strong in-game item promotions. Guild Wars 2 drove in plenty of new revenue thanks to the sale of Heart of Thorns.
Thank you to NCSoft for plotting out each game on an individual basis, it saves me a lot of time. As you can see from the chart above, while Wildstar’s income grew in the first quarter of free to play, it didn’t grow all that much. Revenue is still far down from where it was when the game launched, and it brought in only $2.23 million USD in its initial free to play rush.
At this point in the timeline, it looks like the upcoming China launch may be Wildstars best, and only, bet at salvation. Assuming NCSoft is willing to shoulder the title to that milestone, we’ll likely be hearing in 2017 about whether or not this title goes on the chopping block. As for Guild Wars, it looks like the Heart of Thorns quarter brought in a bump of $14 million. According to the earnings call itself, while sales were good for Heart of Thorns, they did fall below expectations. This lines up with earlier predictions of Daewoo Securities that Heart of Thorns would sell less than expected.
The first quarter earnings for NCSoft won’t be out for another few months, but they will have some very important information going forward: How has Blade & Soul fared with its western launch? How will Wildstar hold up after its free to play transition?
MMO Fallout 