The Korean company NCSoft has published the report for the 4th quarter of 2020. It contains the sales figures of its games. Notably, Aion has shown significant growth. Also, Guild Wars 2 is performing slightly better at the end of 2020 than in the previous year.
What do the numbers say? NCSoft has published the sales figures for the months of October, November, and December 2020. The jump in Aion is particularly striking.
In Guild Wars 2, there is again a slight downward trend, also because the previous quarter was very strong. Otherwise, NCSoft continues to benefit primarily from the two mobile games Lineage M and Lineage 2M.
Aion is stronger than it has been since 2016
What is currently happening with Aion? Aion has seen the largest increase of all NCSoft games:
- From previously 8.5 billion Won (6.2 million Euros), the MMORPG has improved to 18.8 billion Won (13.9 million Euros). Thus, the revenue has more than doubled.
- It last reached such high figures in the first quarter of 2016, when 20.1 billion Won were generated.
The significant increase was mainly due to the classic servers in Korea, which even surpassed WoW. Aion was released in Korea in 2008 and has undergone many major changes since then. Similar to WoW, many players longed for a classic version. This wish was fulfilled at the end of 2020.
However, over here in the West, nothing is felt. There are no classic servers available, and “normal Aion” is rather in a crisis. Private classic servers operated by players are said to have even better numbers than the official servers of the MMORPG.
Guild Wars 2 loses slightly, Blade & Soul’s decline continues
How are the other MMORPGs from NCSoft doing?
- Guild Wars 2 has slightly lost revenue but is significantly better off at the end of 2020 than in the same quarter of 2019. Currently, the game is experiencing a lull, which the developers explain by stating that they are putting many resources into the upcoming expansion, which is supposed to be released in 2021.
- For Blade & Soul, fans are still waiting for the engine update here in the West. The last major news was the release of the new class Astromancer.
The figures and statistics indicate that it is primarily the mobile games Lineage M and Lineage 2M that account for the lion’s share of revenue. Around 280 million of the 370 million Euros come from the mobile games.
NCSoft wants to focus more on this segment in the future. New games like Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2 have already been announced. However, both are mobile MMORPGs.
Are there new PC games? The only MMORPG currently announced by NCSoft for PC is Project TL. It is reminiscent of Lost Ark and is expected to be released in 2021. However, gameplay of the game has not been shown since 2018.
Nevertheless, it is considered one of the most promising online games set to be released in 2021. In addition to new titles, there are also significant updates and expansions for MMORPG fans. We have summarized everything here:
