NCsoft sales rise, income slips
South Korea-based publisher sees quarterly uptick in revenue on Eye of the North release, but net gains down 21 percent year over year.
Today, NCsoft announced its third-quarter results, and while sales were up 5 percent quarter over quarter to $88.3 million, its net income for the quarter fell 5 percent quarter over quarter to $11.1 million, down a substantial 21 percent year over year.
Supported heavily by its home base, 55 percent of NCsoft's sales occurred in Korea. Breaking down the remaining 45 percent, NCsoft accrued $15.1 million from North America, $9 million from Europe, $8.6 million in Japan, and $2.8 million in Taiwan. The publisher also received $4.8 million in royalty income.
NCsoft noted sales were up 81 percent in Europe, which it attributed to its biggest new release for the quarter, Guild Wars: Eye of the North. In all, total sales of ArenaNet's massively multiplayer online game Guild Wars were up 57 percent on the release of Eye of the North, garnering $14.4 million in sales. However, its Lineage franchise remained the primary breadwinner of the quarter, logging $26.2 million in revenue for the original game and $35.8 million for its successor, Lineage 2. City of Heroes and City of Villains combined for $6.3 million in sales.
NCsoft expects sales to continue to rise in the fourth quarter, riding the roll out of Richard Gariott's Tabula Rasa. Commenting on the company's performance and future outlook, NCsoft CFO JaeHo Lee said, "During the third quarter, sales in North America and Europe rose with the successful launch of the Guild Wars' expansion pack. We expect to see an increase in fourth quarter sales with the newly launched Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa. Aion is in a closed beta testing process, and user responses are very positive."
Following its deal to develop games for the PlayStation 3 in July, NCsoft has undergone a significant Western expansion in recent months. After receiving a hefty grant from the British government, the publisher revealed it would be nearly doubling its operations in Brighton, England. In October, NCsoft officially unveiled Orange County, California-based Carbine Studios, which is at work on an unannounced game. Yesterday, the publisher announced it had acquired Cryptic Studios' stake in the City of Heroes and City of Villains franchises, and that it would continue development of the two games at its newly formed NorCal Studios in Mountain View, California.
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Developer: NCsoft
Genre: Sci-Fi Online Role-Playing
Platform: PC
Release Date: Oct 30, 2007
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24 Comments
This is good, at least, because Guild Wars will have more to back it up if ArenaNet starts to fail.
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They better bring out a decent games for the PS3!!!
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I can't wait to see what they add to COH and COV.
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theyll be rolling in money once GW2 comes out
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Wonder what will they bring to the PS3?
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i want city of heroes and villans on ps3.
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they need to make a great game with a nitch(spelling)
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"why all the developer is losing income??while the games sale increased."
Expenses from the games they have in development like Aion and the recently released Tabula Rasa.
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Hmm interesting.
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How is the fully patched-up retail Tabula Rasa? Haven't played it yet.
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They are in big trouble if they think that pile Tabula Rasa will sell well.
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People (like me) are always shocked by the Lineage/L2 popularity, but it`s a testament to NCsoft`s content update frequency. Consider City of Heroes - subscribers have been given around 12 free expansions. L2`s had who knows how many (several gigs of extra game). I have no clue about the first Lineage, but I`m sure it`s had a zillion free content updates too. In that respect, this company feeds its paying players well.
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You have to admire how they`ve adhered to their word and pumped out this huge Guild Wars world with loads of outdoor and dungeon spots, cut-scenes, etc. All that stuff is going to be a great foundation for ArenaNet to draw on for GW 2. They have WoW`s (ex) Lead Programmer. I`d like seamless shared space for overworlds with next-gen standards and ANet`s art sense.
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Its probably because the are focusing on expansion to.
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It's amazing how much appeal lineage has in Korea, and how little appeal it has eveywhere else.
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felshs: there are expenses in running a company you know. most likely they are losing subscribers to other games
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MasterChief725:
Guild Wars IS a great game.
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why all the developer is losing income??while the games sale increased.
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Dang
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I'm glad Guild Wars has been such a success for NC. Now if only Flagship would have learned their lesson from Guild Wars about Hellgate: London.
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MasterChief725, they are a korean company, which means the ps3 there is hotter than the 360, which is the case all over the world except for the US remember the jap reports a little while back?
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however, i think that they will turn back on thier decision to develop for the PS3 exclusively. Honestly, now that they have seen the X360 and Wii's sucess, thier decision will soon change
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w00t Guild Wars
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Guild wars was a great game, i think tabula rise will be too
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