NCSOFT 2nd quarter earnings

Kabulozo

Lineage M stabilized and players started to come back to Lineage 1. Royalties remain stong with Lineage M success in Taiwan.

- Mobile games: 209,9 billion KRW
- Lineage: 42,0 billion KRW
- Blade & Soul: 30,6 billion KRW
- Guild Wars 2: 19,8 KRW
- Aion: 15,6 billion KRW
- Lineage 2: 13,3 billion KRW

- Royalties: 92,4 billion KRW (it is found in sales by region page).

Kabulozo

DMKano said:

Take me down to the telegraph city
Where the Wildstar's king and its sales are shitty
Oh won't you please take me home

Wildstar and Bless Online are both things of the long ago past.

SplitStream13

Hmm seems like Guild Wars 2 is doing better than last year 2Q. 

And someone was saying a month ago that NCSoft plans on killing the franchise. Fun stuff. I suppose they let all sorts of lunatics lurking in here.

cheyane

SplitStream13 said:

Hmm seems like Guild Wars 2 is doing better than last year 2Q. 

And someone was saying a month ago that NCSoft plans on killing the franchise. Fun stuff. I suppose they let all sorts of lunatics lurking in here.

There was a fool who started a thread on that.

Theocritus

Im amazed anyone still plays Aion...that was a terrible game.

Darksworm

Theocritus said:

Im amazed anyone still plays Aion...that was a terrible game.

Aion wasn't terrible.  NCSoft definitely is.

I think the game was okay.  Pretty good classes.  Standard Fair Tab-Targetting.

But NCSoft doesn't know how to handle games post-release, and they are tragic when it comes to balancing it.

Also, for Western players... NCSoft is pretty awful because of the way they publish their games across regions.  The updates have amazingly huge lag, and often there are huge disparities between the updates across markets.  Lineage II is a good example of this.

Even the events differ marketly, at times.

They are just a horrible MMO game developer/publisher.  They throw out gimmicks to make cash, but they don't develop the games like they have a care in the world about them.

I don't play anything from NCSoft these days.  I played L2 for years, but finally just deleted everything plus the email accounts tied to them to cut ties with this company.

I did play Aion a bit.  It was better than i.e. Age of Conan and Warhammer online.  But that was at the very beginning.  These days, I wouldn't touch it because I consider it a dead game - for all intents and purposes.

The community that remains is actually quite nice, though.  Better than FFXIV, for example (which is filled with elitists, toxics, and Lalafell pervs).

gervaise1

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Kajidourden

gervaise1 said:

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Pretty sure in the next 10 years mobile will be the focus for a lot of gaming companies.  

Kabulozo

Blade & Soul 2 for mobile will come next year, but they are not sure if Aion Tempest and Lineage 2M will come in 2019.

They are investing heavily on mobile games right now.

maskedweasel

Kabulozo said:

Blade & Soul 2 for mobile will come next year, but they are not sure if Aion Tempest and Lineage 2M will come in 2019.

They are investing heavily on mobile games right now.

Makes sense to. Mobile games outsell pc games, as the largest segment of gaming these days. It's just like any gaming segment that gets popular, if you don't have a horse in the race, you're already losing.

Sovrath

Darksworm said:

Theocritus said:

Im amazed anyone still plays Aion...that was a terrible game.

Aion wasn't terrible.  NCSoft definitely is.



But NCSoft doesn't know how to handle games post-release, and they are tragic when it comes to balancing it.

I agree that they don't know what to do after these games launch. I was told that, at the time of their launch of Lineage 2, that they worked in groups and each group just "came up with stuff" which they then submitted for inclusion in the game.

That each group approached the game more like artists than "game designers."

On one hand that's great but on the other hand it has their games coming across as unfocused and "huh, what do we do now?"

Warlyx

Theocritus said:

Im amazed anyone still plays Aion...that was a terrible game.

they made a "reboot" of the game in KR , streamlined the leveling and made tons of changes

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

TheScavenger

Is there a reason Lineage 1 has MUCH better revenue and seemingly more successful than Lineage 2? Having played neither...its curious why the newer version doesn't seem nearly as good on the income front.

Kabulozo

Torval said:

TheScavenger said:

Is there a reason Lineage 1 has MUCH better revenue and seemingly more successful than Lineage 2? Having played neither...its curious why the newer version doesn't seem nearly as good on the income front.

It is without a doubt one of the best ARPG games ever made. It got PvP right. It got PvE right. It got dynamic socializing right. It got the loot chase almost right... it stumbled on the leveling grind, death penalty, drop rate somewhat, and .... bots. those freaking bots. That really is what ruined the game. That and when you thought about it, how the bots and gold sellers could be so successful. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails. Anyway, I've never played better PvP than that game.

My only problem with Lineage 1 was the bots. I liked the grind. I'm sick of today's MMOs where you rush to level cap in a few days or even hours.

Panther2103

Torval said:

TheScavenger said:

Is there a reason Lineage 1 has MUCH better revenue and seemingly more successful than Lineage 2? Having played neither...its curious why the newer version doesn't seem nearly as good on the income front.

It is without a doubt one of the best ARPG games ever made. It got PvP right. It got PvE right. It got dynamic socializing right. It got the loot chase almost right... it stumbled on the leveling grind, death penalty, drop rate somewhat, and .... bots. those freaking bots. That really is what ruined the game. That and when you thought about it, how the bots and gold sellers could be so successful. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails. Anyway, I've never played better PvP than that game.

Another reason is, it seems a lot of the really big games in Korea and China from the past, tend to retain audiences a lot more than in other countries. L1 and Conquer online are the two that comes to mind, both retained insanely large audiences where they are from. It might have to do more with the community and time invested than anything else.

Lineage 1 here was not very popular at all at least when I started, but I remember having quite a bit of fun with it until it died off. I really wish it was still around and private servers really don't do anything for me (as all of the ones in english are so small)

Scot

So that's mobile games making up about 60% of their revenue, but so few players seem to have any awareness of how dire that looks for the rest of gaming, not just MMOs.

Kajidourden said:

gervaise1 said:

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Pretty sure in the next 10 years mobile will be the focus for a lot of gaming companies.  

Many have for years now been focusing on smartphones.

PC sales in all shapes other than smartphone are in a slow decline:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ 

Meanwhile smartphone sales keep going up though not as strongly as previously:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ 

The writing is on the wall guys.

Panther2103

Scot said:

So that's mobile games making up about 60% of their revenue, but so few players seem to have any awareness of how dire that looks for the rest of gaming, not just MMOs.

Kajidourden said:

gervaise1 said:

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Pretty sure in the next 10 years mobile will be the focus for a lot of gaming companies.  

Many have for years now been focusing on smartphones.

PC sales in all shapes other than smartphone are in a slow decline:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ 

Meanwhile smartphone sales keep going up though not as strongly as previously:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ 

The writing is on the wall guys.

The writing is on the wall for profits, not for actual development. 

Just because PC's are selling less doesn't mean that the market isn't there for games, it just means that less people are seeing the necessity for buying a PC, and I'm going to say that probably doesn't hit the market that buys PC games, it's probably older people and people who have absolutely no interest in games. 

Mobile having insane profits for low effort can be a problem, depending on the situation. If you look at how Konami changed based on Mobile and Pachinko doing so well, that can show how it might change, but honestly, I don't see most companies doing that. 

What I do see however, is people supplementing their game development costs by releasing mobile games to help boost their funds. I can see people releasing mobile tie ins, that have stupid whale friendly cash shops as that's how that market seems to work, and use those funds to help build the main game.

Games aren't doing worse, look at how well some series still sell, GTA V is the highest grossing entertainment release ever, and consoles still sell like hotcakes (PS4 is at 80 million sold). Also look at Fortnite and PUBG, those games pulled INSANE audiences, and worked in a mobile version as well to capture that market. 

PC and Console games are still around for the long haul, how the development in the future works is based on whether or not people are still willing to buy the games, and obviously people are still willing. 

cesmode8

SplitStream13 said:

Hmm seems like Guild Wars 2 is doing better than last year 2Q. 

And someone was saying a month ago that NCSoft plans on killing the franchise. Fun stuff. I suppose they let all sorts of lunatics lurking in here.

What is mind boggling is that aside from Lineage 2 and Aion, everything is doing better than Gw2.  Aion, an old game from 10+ years ago, is nipping at the heals of Gw2.  

And how are the mobile games so profitable in Asia?

How is this possible? How is GW2 so...non profitble when I see so many people playing it, so many new players, amazing cosmetic cash shop.  I dont get it.

Kyleran

cesmode8 said:7

SplitStream13 said:

Hmm seems like Guild Wars 2 is doing better than last year 2Q. 

And someone was saying a month ago that NCSoft plans on killing the franchise. Fun stuff. I suppose they let all sorts of lunatics lurking in here.

What is mind boggling is that aside from Lineage 2 and Aion, everything is doing better than Gw2.  Aion, an old game from 10+ years ago, is nipping at the heals of Gw2.  

And how are the mobile games so profitable in Asia?

How is this possible? How is GW2 so...non profitble when I see so many people playing it, so many new players, amazing cosmetic cash shop.  I dont get it.

The reason is you can't really see who is and isn't playing what games. 

Just because your GW2 server or shard is full doesn't mean millions are playing the game.

Just as I haven't seen anyone playing Pokemon Go in ages  (all of my children moved on) the game is making money hand over fist.

Someone is playing these games, but they just aren't inside your circle of acquaintence.

Octagon7711

cesmode8 said:

SplitStream13 said:

Hmm seems like Guild Wars 2 is doing better than last year 2Q. 

And someone was saying a month ago that NCSoft plans on killing the franchise. Fun stuff. I suppose they let all sorts of lunatics lurking in here.

What is mind boggling is that aside from Lineage 2 and Aion, everything is doing better than Gw2.  Aion, an old game from 10+ years ago, is nipping at the heals of Gw2.  

And how are the mobile games so profitable in Asia?

How is this possible? How is GW2 so...non profitble when I see so many people playing it, so many new players, amazing cosmetic cash shop.  I dont get it.

GW2 started that gated content thing and tangled up map around then.  Probably turned a lot of people off.

Sometimes I'll login just to fight certain world bosses and that's it.  If I'm late I still get put in an overflow shard.  After the fight is done I usually get the option two or three times to switch to a busier shard.  So they are moving a lot of people around.

Scot

Torval said:

Panther2103 said:

Scot said:

So that's mobile games making up about 60% of their revenue, but so few players seem to have any awareness of how dire that looks for the rest of gaming, not just MMOs.

Kajidourden said:

gervaise1 said:

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Pretty sure in the next 10 years mobile will be the focus for a lot of gaming companies.  

Many have for years now been focusing on smartphones.

PC sales in all shapes other than smartphone are in a slow decline:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ 

Meanwhile smartphone sales keep going up though not as strongly as previously:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ 

The writing is on the wall guys.

The writing is on the wall for profits, not for actual development. 

Just because PC's are selling less doesn't mean that the market isn't there for games, it just means that less people are seeing the necessity for buying a PC, and I'm going to say that probably doesn't hit the market that buys PC games, it's probably older people and people who have absolutely no interest in games. 

Mobile having insane profits for low effort can be a problem, depending on the situation. If you look at how Konami changed based on Mobile and Pachinko doing so well, that can show how it might change, but honestly, I don't see most companies doing that. 

What I do see however, is people supplementing their game development costs by releasing mobile games to help boost their funds. I can see people releasing mobile tie ins, that have stupid whale friendly cash shops as that's how that market seems to work, and use those funds to help build the main game.

Games aren't doing worse, look at how well some series still sell, GTA V is the highest grossing entertainment release ever, and consoles still sell like hotcakes (PS4 is at 80 million sold). Also look at Fortnite and PUBG, those games pulled INSANE audiences, and worked in a mobile version as well to capture that market. 

PC and Console games are still around for the long haul, how the development in the future works is based on whether or not people are still willing to buy the games, and obviously people are still willing. 

Consoles could be changing as well. @blueturtle13 has mentioned consoles moving in the direction of streaming media services like Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix.

I don't think mobile will take over the future. I think our device paradigm is slowly shifting and we're slowly starting to think differently about devices and how we interact with them and what we use them for.

It all depends on how long term we look, I do think in twenty years time we may only have smartphones and 2in1's; laptops, consoles and PC's may get squeezed out.

There is a trend towards one device that does everything, the smartphone was the fusion of many devices that you can carry around; the 2in1 may end up the only computer you need in the home. Both will work seamlessly with your TV which may in fact house the PC, the "2in1" becoming a terminal. 

So I am not saying throw away your "destop" PC's and consoles, this is way of as yet, but the direction of travel seems clear.

The only thing holding this back is cost, but with less devices people are more prepared to pay more. If you end up thinking you need a tower PC and 2in1, a console and smartphone a Switch and whatever else, you are less inclined to pay top money for all of them.

MadFrenchie

Torval said:

Panther2103 said:

Scot said:

So that's mobile games making up about 60% of their revenue, but so few players seem to have any awareness of how dire that looks for the rest of gaming, not just MMOs.

Kajidourden said:

gervaise1 said:

Many companies have talked about "getting into mobile". NCSoft not only talked the talk they walked the walk.

That mobile revenue has declined after the initial rush is clear - driven by people checking out Lineage M and then tailing off perhaps? Revenue is still roughly twice the PC games listed though.

And whilst some mobile games do seem to have "short" life spans others don't - pretty much like PC games really.

Pretty sure in the next 10 years mobile will be the focus for a lot of gaming companies.  

Many have for years now been focusing on smartphones.

PC sales in all shapes other than smartphone are in a slow decline:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ 

Meanwhile smartphone sales keep going up though not as strongly as previously:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ 

The writing is on the wall guys.

The writing is on the wall for profits, not for actual development. 

Just because PC's are selling less doesn't mean that the market isn't there for games, it just means that less people are seeing the necessity for buying a PC, and I'm going to say that probably doesn't hit the market that buys PC games, it's probably older people and people who have absolutely no interest in games. 

Mobile having insane profits for low effort can be a problem, depending on the situation. If you look at how Konami changed based on Mobile and Pachinko doing so well, that can show how it might change, but honestly, I don't see most companies doing that. 

What I do see however, is people supplementing their game development costs by releasing mobile games to help boost their funds. I can see people releasing mobile tie ins, that have stupid whale friendly cash shops as that's how that market seems to work, and use those funds to help build the main game.

Games aren't doing worse, look at how well some series still sell, GTA V is the highest grossing entertainment release ever, and consoles still sell like hotcakes (PS4 is at 80 million sold). Also look at Fortnite and PUBG, those games pulled INSANE audiences, and worked in a mobile version as well to capture that market. 

PC and Console games are still around for the long haul, how the development in the future works is based on whether or not people are still willing to buy the games, and obviously people are still willing. 

Consoles could be changing as well. @blueturtle13 has mentioned consoles moving in the direction of streaming media services like Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix.

I don't think mobile will take over the future. I think our device paradigm is slowly shifting and we're slowly starting to think differently about devices and how we interact with them and what we use them for.

It will be interesting to see where it heads.  The mobile market is currently dominated by smartphone games, and those aren't even really in the same realm as, say, a Witcher title.  Mobile has a huge hurdle in terms of control and UI scheming before I could see it destroying the gaming market for PC or console.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Kabulozo said:

Torval said:

TheScavenger said:

Is there a reason Lineage 1 has MUCH better revenue and seemingly more successful than Lineage 2? Having played neither...its curious why the newer version doesn't seem nearly as good on the income front.

It is without a doubt one of the best ARPG games ever made. It got PvP right. It got PvE right. It got dynamic socializing right. It got the loot chase almost right... it stumbled on the leveling grind, death penalty, drop rate somewhat, and .... bots. those freaking bots. That really is what ruined the game. That and when you thought about it, how the bots and gold sellers could be so successful. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails. Anyway, I've never played better PvP than that game.

My only problem with Lineage 1 was the bots. I liked the grind. I'm sick of today's MMOs where you rush to level cap in a few days or even hours.

Honestly, grinding just seems to be a waste for the genre.

Scot

ikcin said:

Scot said:

So that's mobile games making up about 60% of their revenue, but so few players seem to have any awareness of how dire that looks for the rest of gaming, not just MMOs.

Many have for years now been focusing on smartphones.

PC sales in all shapes other than smartphone are in a slow decline:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ 

Meanwhile smartphone sales keep going up though not as strongly as previously:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ 

The writing is on the wall guys.

Well, not exactly -

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/30/17409808/smartphone-shipments-declined-internet-trends-report

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/13/17567760/pc-sales-growth-idc-gartner-july-2018

Mobile games, like WoW, and so many things are just fashion. WoW made fashion the production of a certain kind of MMORPGs. Now most companies are in the point where they became mobile and ask - now what? And have no answer.

In general the next big thing in the IT industry is the AI. Honestly I do not think it will work well in the MMORPGs. Imagine if the mobs become smart and adaptive as the players. The solo guys (PvErs) will run away.

All right I will call the data mixed than, it does seem to vary with what site you look at. I still think we had a couple decades of ever more devices and now they are starting to merge. Indeed if the "PC" ends up being the sole home computer, it will have triumphed. But will it be top end, not so sure about that.

Scot

ikcin said:

Scot said:

All right I will call the data mixed than, it does seem to vary with what site you look at. I still think we had a couple decades of ever more devices and now they are starting to merge. Indeed if the "PC" ends up being the sole home computer, it will have triumphed. But will it be top end, not so sure about that.

It is not about the site. The data from the big research companies like IDC and Gartner shows the mobile market is fully penetrated. There is not more place for growth. This does not means the market for mobile games is in the same situation. But it is close. As for the PC market- right now there are significantly technological limitations for the power of the mobile phones. So many people will buy some kind of PC as they already have some kind of good mobile phone. My smartphone is 5 years old probably, and has the full functionality of the newest phones now. It is not so powerful, but the mobile phones are close to the limit.

Anything smaller than a tower has room issues of course, you can't stick a proper graphics card in a smartphone. But this issue effects PC's as well, the processor speed has been capped for ten years. They have been tweaking since than to get speed increases, that can only go so far.

Part of the need for a better smartphone is artificial as you pointed out, you mentioned your five year mobile phone. PC's are in the same boat, each time I do a complete upgrade I start to wonder how needed is it? The specs required for games are increasing more in things like the hard drive than chips. When I think about how much extra bang for my money I was getting for paying more ten years ago to the amount I get now it is a bit lame.