NCsoft Q1 profits jump 315%

Aion: Tower of Eternity lifts Korean publisher's quarterly earnings to $107.7 million, a 51 percent year-over-year rise.

NCsoft's newest massively multiplayer online role-playing game is paying significant dividends for the Korean publisher. Having launched Aion: Tower of Eternity in Korea late last year, the publisher said today that the supernatural-themed MMORPG helped pushed first-quarter revenues to KRW133.4 billion ($107.7 million), a substantial 51 percent leap over the same period a year ago.


Aion is soaring
Across the board, NCsoft saw its margins increase. Net profit for the period rocketed skyward 315 percent year-over-year to KRW33.5 billion ($27 million), with operating profit jumping 128 percent to KRW42.5 billion ($34.3 million). Breaking down sales figures by game, NCsoft said that Aion accounted for 34 percent of revenues, followed by Lineage II at 33 percent, Lineage at 23 percent, City of Heroes at 5 percent, and Guild Wars at 3 percent during the quarter.

"Aion has solidified its position as a new growth force without encroaching sales of the Lineage series," said NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee in a statement. "Starting with its service in China in Q2, we are ready for a successful launch of this triple-A franchise in Japan, Taiwan, North America and Europe within the second half of the year."

NCsoft went on to note that the sharp uptick in profits could be attributed to continued strong sales of Lineage and Lineage II.

One title that did not contribute to the publisher's quarter was Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, which was officially taken offline at the end of February. Last week, the game's titular designer filed a $24 million suit against NCsoft, charging the publisher with breach of contract and fraud in relation to his "involuntary" departure from the company in November.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6209476...dlines;title;2

Wellt least they are starting to make up for all the damage Richard Garriott's flop did.

aion should be reeling in that much profit, it looks like such a sweet game, i wish it would release, the only problem is.. even if it did, it's subscription monthly... 15$/month standard. BLAH HUGE TURN OFF

interesting stuff =D aion is such a large percentage of their sales already and has only been launched in Korea

Any news on how much Guild Wars made with their new item sales?

I know I spent $10 on the pet unlock!

is aion scheduled for release in us anytime soon? I don't really follow the game but in past couple weeks I have heard some amaxing things about it and would love to try it out even with the monthly

Actually Korea and China. Next up is Taiwan and Australia I bellieve then they will try to devour NA/EU regions next. They have 41 servers in Korea and 114 servers in China and they are still growing.

http://www.aionsource.com/forum/news...ng-report.html

Yes, we'll let our partners devour everything in site first then we'll market GW2. I really hope that isn't the case but how could it not be ? Anyone know if Arenanet is hiring for the marketing department ?

Maybe because Aion is freaking awesome.

Any company with an awesome MMO on board is getting a huge profit spike.

Played the beta of Aion. Yes, it but plays like WoW, and yes it is awesome.

Unofficially I've seen pre-orders listing a September US release for Aion, but I haven't heard anything official (I signed up for the newsletters but haven't heard a peep from them). It's the one game that actually tempts me to do a pay-for-play - nothing else has in years. I'm waiting for free trials/beta tests here, then will decide...in the meantime, congrats to NCsoft.

Crazy, at least their making some good money.

From what I've heard Aion is due out in the fall of '09 for NA, they are still altering everything for a NA launch. So their sales are up in Q1 '09 what did they release in Q1 '08 for comparison?

Amazing what happens when a brilliant new game is released.

Aion deserves the credit.

GW updates for storage went live in the 2nd quarter, you will hear about those profits sometime end of July/start of August.

Also i do belive I said a week or so BEFORE the storage update went live to buy NCSoft Stock right then and there and sell in 3-4 monthns for a nice profit.

http://http://www.reuters.com/financ...mbol=036570.KS

Sure its down a tad today, but what a jump in April-May

Except for the graphics (which are amazing, as is the performance given how good the graphics are), there is absolutely nothing new or interesting about Aion. It is not innovative in any way, and is another generic MMO, with generic classes, and the way it plays reminds me of Lineage 2 in many ways.

It *is* a much better game overall than Warhammer though, and competes for the same PvP MMO market, so it should sell more copies and retain more subscriptions than Warhammer.

It plays like a faster paced WoW. It has a kickass soundtrack as well.

People said the exact same thing about WOW how it wasn't innovative enough but yet over the years Blizzard as accumulated over 11 mill subscribers. I can assure you that Aion will have a large following it will be here for many years.

Yakkington ^^

It does not feel faster paced than WoW to me, but yeah the soundtrack is definitely very cool. You also get Asian rock combat music that changes from zone to zone.

Here are a few screenshots I took from a month or so ago. It's not terrible, it's just that if you ignore the graphics, you realize that there is absolutely nothing interesting about this game. I think that, just like with attractive faces, players who haven't played the game, are looking at the screenshots and fantasizing those positive connotations onto every other aspect of the game. They might not be so happy when they find out how grindy some aspects of the game are, or for example, that your armor can randomly break if you try to upgrade it.

My templar tanking for a PUG in the early level outdoor elite area:

Image



I have no idea what they were saying in party chat, hopefully it wasn't bad. Thankfully you can hotlink your quest log into chat.



Mod Edit: Changed 1st image to a link due to sizing of the image.

The abyss is where it gets better. Not only is there alot of flight based combat, but some pretty big PVP areas as well.
Oh. I also like how there is night and day versions of some of the music tracks, its a neat touch.