And here’s what I found.
Tag: NCSoft
Aion Classic Drives NCSoft Sales
Steam: Guild Wars 2 Hits Digital Platform In November
Get your second war of guilds this year.
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NCSoft Q2 Financial Highlights: Lods of Emone
What’s that spell? Loads of money! Probably.
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NCSoft Q1 Revenue: L2M Spurs Historic Sales
1.5 Years Later, NCSoft Is Killing Aion: Legions of War
This MMO is mobile; moving to a graveyard.
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Guild Wars 2 Announces Next Expansion
NCSoft Files New Trademark For City of Heroes
It has been more than eight years since NCSoft shutdown City of Heroes and unsurprisingly there are still a lot of people who haven’t quite forgiven the developer for its transgressions. As MMO Culture noted this week however, it looks like NCSoft has filed new trademark applications for the City of Heroes brand. Could this mean something new on the horizon for City of Heroes?
Our guess? It might have something to do with the rogue server negotiations that have been going on for some time now. It might also be related to the fact that NCSoft’s trademarks for City of Heroes have all died. The prior trademarks for City of Heroes, Going Rogue, Freedom, etc, have been listed as abandoned for several years now. You see, in order to keep a trademark going you have to show that it is still in active use; a reason to be protecting it.
Since NCSoft has had no interest in the City of Heroes name for nearly a decade now, their lawyer never bothered submitted a notice of continued use. Once a trademark is knocked off for lack of notice, it is unrevivable. You want it back, you’ll need to file a new application. So why does NCSoft suddenly want the trademark back? It could be that they just didn’t notice it had expired, it could be that they are protecting their interest in the names as part of the negotiations with the rogue server teams.
It could just NCSoft wanting to collect its toys so nobody else can play with them. We will have to wait and see.
Source: Trademarkia via MMO Culture
NCSoft Income Dips In Q2, Lineage Is Doing Just Fine
NCSoft this week released their second quarter earning reports and the results are not entirely great, but not entirely bad. While sales dropped 6% over last year, profits are down 19% with net income down 17% over the same period. NCSoft’s mobile titles are still going very strong and now make up the vast majority of the company’s revenue with Lineage continuing to be the breadwinner on the traditional MMO side.
Lineage launched a remaster update and revamped monetizations that has been credited for a spike in sales and has seen user numbers more than double. NCSoft believes that this rebound revenue will remain solid and that other updates in the second half will maintain revenue numbers. According to NCSoft statements, Lineage M continues to maintain its highest numbers ever. NCSoft also expressed pride in Lineage II, noting that “the fact that a game in its sixteenth year is achieving 55% YoY growth is extremely encouraging for us,” with more updates coming in the second half of the year that should accelerate growth. There were no additional notes for Aion, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars 2.
The second half of 2019 is set to bring Lineage II M to the market which NCSoft hopes will shake up the market with its differentiated content. Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2 are progressing smoothly with NCSoft taking aim to ensure that the games are received well not just in Korea but in the international market as well. Lineage II M is set to launch in the fourth fiscal quarter 2019 followed by international launch in a “timely manner” with minimal gaps. They did acknowledge concerns with the Korean MMO market due to underperformance of recent launches in the country and whether the market has further growth potential. NCSoft stated that their own internal numbers indicate that there is a large potential demand of customers “waiting on the sidelines” for something to appear, and that Lineage II M is exactly the title that can satisfy that pent-up demand, however they do recognize that adding overseas revenue is necessary and that Lineage II M will cater to that market.
As for NCWest, NCSoft noted the company is going through a “process” to improve efficiency from the studio, but does not see a significant decrease in labor costs from the entity in the coming year which should assuage fears of further layoffs.
On the topic of cloud/console gaming, it was stated that PC titles from the beginning will be designed to be played on a console format going forward. There are internal projects looking into cloud gaming, but nothing that could be discussed at this time. ArenaNet is looking at several projects including a potential mobile Guild Wars 2, however there are no solid titles that could be announced at this time as all of the projects are still under review.
(Source: NCSoft quarterly income)
Titan Network In Talks To Revive City of Heroes With NCSoft Blessing
The Titan Network is in talks with NCSoft regarding a community-run City of Heroes server. Things are looking positive, so stay strong. We don’t have a timeline right now, but we’ll provide more updates as soon as we can. #SaveCoH https://t.co/zSq3nTEScM
— Tony V (@TonyV_CoH) April 24, 2019
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City of Heroes is back! Or it was. In case you fell off the face of the planet over the past few days like yours truly did, you may have missed all of the hubbub surrounding City of Heroes, a game that’s getting a lot of widespread attention for a title that is dead six years running. The mishegas all began last week as we learned that City of Heroes doesn’t just have a functioning emulator, but it has been running in secret for the past six years now. Even worse, a fair few members of the press knew about it all along (Side note: The people operating the server are probably the same that do not like me and as such I was never cued in on the secret private server).
Fast forward a few days and the code for the private server was released online, leading to the launch of SCORE, a publicly playable server that went live over the weekend. Fast forward a couple more days, and the server went down due to what later turned out to be a fake legal threat. It remains offline. For more information on all of this, you can check out Massively OP’s Bree Royce who has meticulously covered all of the events.
Today, Tony V of the Titan Network announced via Twitter that there are negotiations going on with City of Heroes. Granted, there have been ongoing talks since the game shut down so make what you will of these “positive” developments.
MMO Fallout 