The MMORPG giant NCsoft is currently under fire: The gaming industry is in crisis, the new MMORPG Throne and Liberty is performing poorly. At an investor conference on March 28, NCSoft was pressured so hard that it admitted: Yes, ArenaNet has started working on Guild Wars 3. However, the development studio of Guild Wars 2 seemed to be quite displeased about this.
This is the situation:
- NCsoft, the publisher of Guild Wars 2, is a Korean gaming giant that makes its money with MMORPGs. Here in the West, we know Guild Wars 2, Aion, and Blade & Soul. In South Korea, Lineage is especially huge. However, the latest installment in the series, Throne and Liberty, is not performing well.
- The stock price of NCsoft has plummeted by about 80% from 2021 to 2024: Therefore, the company was under fire at an investor conference.
- In this situation, there was finally talk about Guild Wars 3, although the developers at ArenaNet did not seem pleased about it.
Guild Wars 3 is confirmed – Work has begun
What did NCSoft say? As reported by the Korean economic site Money Today, NCsoft pushes for the development of Guild Wars 3 to leverage the potential of the game series and strengthen its position in the US market.
However, it is stated that ArenaNet is focusing first on expansions for Guild Wars 2. The headquarters has agreed to this.
A NCsoft spokesperson is quoted saying:
“It is true that it has reached the level of ‘Development-Review’, but the start of development has not yet been finalized.”
This is what ArenaNet says: In response to the site MMORPG.com, the actual developers did not want to confirm or deny the report from their South Korean bosses:
They state that they are always exploring new possibilities for new games, but currently have nothing to confirm. The focus of the team is on Guild Wars 2 and the next expansion, which they want to talk about soon.
Co-CEO confirmed Guild Wars 3 after tough questions at the conference
Why is the info coming now? The investor conference on March 28 apparently went terribly. The CEO excused himself due to an “important meeting with Google” and his representative, the co-CEO, was grilled quite rigorously by the massive Korean gaming site Inven. There were even questions if the CEO had what it took to lead NCsoft and if it was okay for the managers to receive such high bonus payments when the stock price is crashing:
- Unlike in all the previous years, NCsoft has stopped reporting revenues from the games
- Throne and Liberty is not performing as well in South Korea as hoped
- The mention of “Guild Wars 3” came in response to a question about what NCSoft West was actually doing – the branch has been in the red for 8 years.
Reading the Q&A on Inven, it was indeed an unusually rough atmosphere for such an investor conference. We usually do not see this from MMORPG companies, but they typically do not lose 80% of their market value in 3 years either.
Guild Wars 3 would be the next big AAA MMORPG developed in the West. The last one released was New World in 2021. After years without major MMORPGs being developed in the West, there have recently been signs that this is changing again. Riot Games is developing an MMORPG for League of Legends and Amazon one for The Lord of the Rings.
