A Korean investment firm has analyzed NCSoft and its MMO titles like WildStar and Guild Wars 2.
Daewoo Securities is a Korean investment firm. The last time we heard from them was when they correctly predicted that Guild Wars 2 would get an expansion in 2015. This is significantly less impressive considering they had predicted that in previous years as well, but oh well.
Daewoo Securities sees extremely dark prospects for WildStar when analyzing NCSoft’s portfolio. With only $585,000 left, they see the SF MMO’s monthly revenue. They probably aren’t leaning too far out of the window with that: The last results from the fourth quarter of 2014 were disastrous for WildStar. However, they believe in a rosy future for Guild Wars 2: The release of Heart of Thorns is expected in the third quarter of 2015. They expect the revenue GW2 generates to sextuple compared to the second quarter of 2015.
The future of NCSoft relies on Guild Wars 2, Lineage Eternal, and Mobile Games
Daewoo Securities also comments on the dispute between NCSoft and Nexon. Nexon, as a larger shareholder, plans to take control of NCSoft. According to Daewoo, this has not yet affected the stock price. Overall, the investment firm believes that NCSoft’s situation should significantly improve in the second half of 2015 compared to the first. Major moments are planned here: Besides the Guild Wars 2 expansion, they expect several mobile games to be strong, and they are banking on Lineage Eternal, which is expected to go into beta in the second half of 2015. The Lineage franchise is still NCSoft’s biggest draw despite its old age.
The “Then it went well” number for sold GW2 expansions is set at 3 million, while anything above 2 million sold units is considered “still okay”. Anything below or a delay into 2016 is seen as a bad scenario. In that case, if both the mobile games and Lineage Eternal disappoint, Nexon might gain the support of other shareholders and increase control over NCSoft. In an ideal situation (mobile games do well, Lineage Eternal beta is great; GW2 sells like hotcakes), Nexon could exit instead.
