NCsoft seems to be doing really poorly, as reported. For after Throne and Liberty, they intend to lay off many developers.
In recent years, a rough wind has blown through the video game industry. Almost all major developers have shrunk their teams or made layoffs. Now the next wave is coming for NCsoft – and this time many developers are likely to be affected. They are even considering “voluntary resignations”.
Where does the information come from? The Korean site Yonhap News discusses the recent events at NCsoft. Additionally, the occurrences are being discussed in the MMORPG subreddit.
What plans are there? According to Yonhap News, plans are currently being finalized to make “internal restructuring”. The goal is a “significant amount of staff in game development”.
There will likely not only be layoffs, but they are also considering offering employees the voluntary resignation – something they last did in 2012.
This aligns with the plans of the still relatively new CEO Park Byung-moo, who took office at the end of 2023 and has been trying to re-establish NCsoft since then.
Why are there so many layoffs? Yonhap refers to it as “further decline in performance”, which basically means: NCsoft is not making as much money anymore. Sales are sluggish and projects are falling short of expectations. Sales dropped by 30.8% and profits last year even fell by 75.4% compared to 2022.
The main reason for this is likely the decline in sales of the mobile offshoots of Lineage. Revenues from this area at one point made up 67% of sales, but that figure dropped to 38% last year.
Was Throne and Liberty a flop? It’s not so easy to say. The Korean version of Throne and Liberty likely fell short of expectations and lost many players quickly. The global version of the game is probably doing significantly better, but the game is “less well monetized” (from the investors’ perspective), which means that no significant long-term profits are to be expected here. Additionally, the profit must be shared with Amazon, with whom they collaborate.
What about Guild Wars 2? Whenever NCsoft is mentioned, there is a bit of concern for ArenaNet and thus also Guild Wars 2. At least currently, there are no indications that ArenaNet is also affected by the layoffs. It seems as though they are allowed to still “do their thing”, so there is currently no acute danger for Guild Wars 2.
How severe the layoffs at NCsoft will be is something we will surely hear about in the coming days or weeks as the plans are put into action. We can only hope that this has little impact on the games we like.
However, Throne and Liberty also has entirely different issues: Some players block your path, forcing you to use tricks to get past.
