The Korean company NCSoft has been one of the world’s most successful studios producing MMORPGs for over 20 years. They are behind Lineage, Blade & Soul, and Aion. In the West, they were responsible for publishing Guild Wars 2 and WildStar. A graph showing NCSoft’s revenue figures since 1998 now reveals why so few new PC MMORPGs are being released.
This is the situation:
- NCSoft has been in the MMORPG business since 1998. They are one of the largest game companies in the world. With titles like Lineage, Aion, and Blade & Soul, they have shaped the Asian MMORPG market. They operate globally, having released Guild Wars 2 and WildStar in the West.
- The last PC MMORPG they released was WildStar (2014), which failed despite all efforts and had to be discontinued. The long-awaited action MMORPG “Project TL”, which is set to be released on PC and consoles, has been in development for 10 years but seems lost.
- Instead, NCSoft has focused on mobile games since 2017, such as Lineage M, Lineage 2M, and more mobile games related to Aion and Blade & Soul.
Why are there hardly any large PC MMORPGs anymore?
This graph shows why PC MMORPGs are dying out: In its quarterly report for Q1 2021, NCSoft displayed the revenue development since 1998.
Here you can see that the company grew steadily from 1998 to 2005 with its initial titles Lineage and Lineage 2. Between 2005 and 2008, revenue stagnated for 4 years until it rose again in 2009 with the new MMORPGs Aion, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars 2, and continued to grow relatively linearly until 2016.
In 2017, Lineage Mobile was released, a mobile version of the 20-year-old PC MMORPG “Lineage.” Revenue exploded and remained at nearly double the level of before the mobile phase for 3 years.
In the pandemic year 2020, revenue skyrocketed even further.
This is how successful mobile MMORPGs are: Another graph from NCSoft shows: In the last 9 years, MMORPGs have taken over the mobile market and the Google Play Store at least in terms of revenue, replacing the previously dominant casual games.
NCSoft considers itself a leader in the MMORPG trend with Lineage M and Lineage 2M.
In their view, mobile gamers now demand “immersive gameplay” from their games, that is, games that captivate them.
This is the result of the development: For years, Asia was still the bastion for PC MMORPGs. But in recent years, that has changed, as Asians have increasingly turned to mobile games.
There are still new Asian MMORPGs coming to the West, such as Elyon or Swords of Legends Online. However, new MMORPGs for PC have also become rare in Asia.
An MMORPG for everyone – for casuals and pros, for smartphone, PC, and console
This is the way forward: NCSoft has stated that after the “PC phase” and the “mobile phase”, they now wish to tackle two more phases:
- They want to bring their games to consoles, as there is a demand for MMOs there.
- Ultimately, the endgame is that people will play the same games on PC, mobile, and consoles.
As the “new game” in the pipeline for PC and consoles, NCSoft currently has only “Project TL”: The long-awaited MMORPG has been in development for 10 years. In the second half of 2021, “internal tests” are set to take place.
This is the problem: In South Korea, the future seems to be heading towards NCSoft creating an MMORPG that is supposed to run on mobile and PC – perhaps even on consoles in the West. The idea is that people will play the game on the go with their smartphones and run it at home via an emulator on their computers.
However, players of PC MMORPGs in the West have developed a strong aversion to mobile games.
Yet, based on the numbers, it seems at least in the medium term unlikely that NCSoft will develop another MMORPG focused solely on PC players after Project TL.
From NCSoft’s depiction of sharks for hardcore users, whales for mid-core users, and a school of fish for casual players, it is clear to see NCSoft’s mindset: they aim to reach as many players as possible since each one generates revenue. And clearly, revenue is primarily in the mobile sector.
More on the topic of MMORPGs from Asia:
Those who want to play new MMORPGs must overcome their aversion to Asia
