Tag: NCSoft

NCSoft NCoin Cards Available at Retailers


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NCSoft has announced that NCoin, the company’s premium currency, is available now at a select number of retailers. The list of retailers includes Walmart, Gamestop, Best Buy, and Toys R Us.

Whether you’re looking to stock up on NCoin, or give your fellow gamer friends some NCSOFT spending money for the holidays, NCoin cards are available now at several retail locations! View the list below and check with your local retailer about picking up some NCoin, good for purchases in NCSOFT games. Select cards will also provide a bonus item for your chosen game as a thank you for being an NCoin card purchaser.

(Source: Lineage II)

NCSoft’s Q3 Finances Are Here: Wildstar, Wildstar, Wildstar


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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.

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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.

Lineage Eternal Still Coming: Latest Trailer Released


NCSoft has dropped the latest trailer video for Lineage Eternal, the long awaited sequel to the company’s largest (and after close to two decades still its biggest money maker) MMO Lineage. For those keeping track, Lineage Eternal has gone through several delays plus a development team that isn’t too keen on discussing release schedules. With the beta set to launch this month in Korea (keep your fingers crossed), it looks like the game is finally on track for launch early next year.

NCSoft’s next quarterly report comes out this month, and will no doubt offer some level of insight into Lineage Eternal’s upcoming launch in Korea and internationally.

[Video] Welcome To Wildstar


NCSoft has released a brand new Welcome to Wildstar video. The video doesn’t reveal anything new, but it does introduce the basics of the game to prospective gamers. The narrator seems to have had a fun time recording it.

Lineage II Releases Player Appreciate Pack


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NCSoft wants to show players how much it appreciates them, and probably apologize for the fact that character registration has been completely disabled while the team goes in and figures out how to deal with the overwhelming number of bots taking over the game. While registration is down until August 24th, players have been invited to redeem a player appreciation pack, containing a myriad of items and boosts.

The appreciation pack can be redeemed in game until September 16th and can be claimed once per account.

(Source: NCSoft)

NCSoft: All Key IPs Showed Stable Sales Last Quarter


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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)

Wildstar Finds New Life On Steam


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Wildstar has been on Steam for nearly a month, and it looks like the population has remained pretty stable since the initial launch day. While the game doesn’t look like it’ll be topping any sales records, it looks like Steam has introduced new life to the previously waning MMO.

In its first month on Steam, Wildstar peaked at five thousand players. As the chart shows, it’s been pretty stable since then with an average of 1.5 thousand concurrent users and a daily peak of about three thousand. Concurrent users predictably rise and drop over the course of each day, with the low points in activity during overnight periods in the west.

The community seems mostly pleased, with 77% positive reviews on Steam.

NCSoft Updated Timeline


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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)

Blade & Soul Is Getting More Expensive


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Blade & Soul is about to get more expensive for European users, as NCSoft has announced price hikes coming to those who pay via Euro and British Pound. Beginning June 1st, prices for premium membership will increase for parity with the in-game Hongmoon store, according to NCSoft.

New prices will start out at €11.99 and £9.59 for 30 days of premium. Roughly translated to USD, this means European players will be paying $13.43 and $13.87 for the same service that Americans currently pay $11.99 for. Any subscription prior to June 1st will be locked in at the current price.

(Source: NCSoft)

Wildstar Soundtrack Coming


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If you’ve ever played Wildstar and really wanted to get your hands on the soundtrack, this news is for you. Carbine Studios and NCSoft have announced that, thanks to a partnership with Sumthing Else Music Works, the official soundtrack for Wildstar will be hitting digital stores beginning later this month. The soundtrack will be released in waves, with Volume 1 out May 31st.

Sumthing Else Music Works is the industry leader in licensing and distributing video game soundtracks. Their list of partners is massive and includes well known franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Halo, Far Cry, and Hitman.

Composer Jeff Kurtenacker (Pirates of the Burning Sea) fuses musical elements together that bring space adventure to life. Using synthesizers, a wide array of guitars, and a 75-piece Los Angeles orchestra, Kurtenacker’s approach to theWildStar universe is highly thematic, creating memorable and exciting music that engages players throughout their MMO experience.

You can pre-order the soundtrack and check out what else SEMW has to offer at their official website.