The South Korean company NCSoft is a leading developer of online role-playing games worldwide. Here in the West, they are primarily known for the MMORPGs Guild Wars 2, Blade & Soul, and WildStar. In South Korea, however, they operate Lineage, which is something like the “Korean WoW” – but the MMORPG studio is now in a crisis, as the CEO admits.
This is how the crisis manifests itself: The stock value of NCSoft has dropped by nearly 29% in one month. The company now has a market value of about 10.2 billion US dollars. At its peak, in February 2021, it was still 18 billion US dollars.
What is the reason for the crisis? The main reason for the crisis can probably be attributed to the release of the mobile MMORPG “Blade & Soul 2.” Since the launch of the title, NCSoft’s stock has dropped by 20%.
Blade & Soul is a popular PC MMORPG, especially in South Korea. It is firmly embedded in the gaming culture and has many fans.
The successor game launched extremely successfully and had already broken a player record before its release. The full focus of the public was on Blade & Soul 2, but the game fell apart under scrutiny and received poor reviews.
The game for mobile and PC was accused of being extremely aggressively monetized. Many viewed it as a blatant case of Pay2Win:
- There was a battle pass that was appealing to players
- Powerful items could be obtained in loot boxes
- NCSoft also sold experience boosts
This led to a shitstorm against NCSoft. The players simply wouldn’t take it anymore.
Already on September 1, NCSoft had to backtrack: They deactivated many boosts, reversed content from the battle pass, and distributed gifts as compensation. However, the damage seems to have been done.
In addition to Blade & Soul 2, there are other negative influences:
- There is a controversial change in Lineage. It seems that they have alienated the core players who spend a lot of money, as they favored the “less paying players” in an update (via pulsenews).
- Additionally, with “Odin: Valhalla Rising”, there is strong competition in the mobile sector.
- Moreover, the gaming market is not as strong as it was in 2020 after the COVID crisis waned. Nexon had to experience a similar crisis.
NCSoft CEO says: Company is in crisis
This is the new development: In a letter, the CEO of NCSoft, Kim Toek-Jin, has now addressed his employees. It states:
The external reaction to NCSoft is very cold and the criticism continues to rain down on us.
In some ways, we as a company are in a crisis – I can see and hear that.
The CEO says he takes responsibility for the situation and is ready to make unpleasant decisions. Employees are invited to express their feelings about the situation and share their ideas on how to address the problem.
This is what’s behind it: About 5 years ago, NCSoft was heading straight for a crisis. Their own PC MMORPGs like Aion, Lineage 1 and 2, and Blade & Soul were slowly aging, and new sources of revenue were needed.
With “Lineage M,” a mobile version of Lineage 1, NCSoft reinvented itself overnight in 2017. In a short time, the new mobile game generated more revenue for NCSoft than all PC titles combined.
Quickly, it was announced that more mobile titles would be coming – even a Blade & Soul 2 as a mobile game was quickly in discussion. It was finally finished after a long time and looked like a sure hit at the start. But apparently, they have overshot the mark with monetization.
Although Asian players, especially on mobile, are known to be open to microtransactions – it seems they wouldn’t go along with everything.
2 new MMORPGs are so successful that they unfortunately change everything
