NCSoft draws bow for W2tr revenue in 2020

NCSoft is set to break through the 2 trillion won ($1.7 billion) annual revenue mark this year, on the back of Lineage2M and upcoming titles Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2M.

The company’s 2019 fiscal report released Wednesday showed that it earned 1.7 trillion won last year, down 1 percent from the previous year.

While NCSoft shouldered a 22 percent on-year operating loss due to decreased royalties, in the fourth quarter alone, after the launch of new mobile game Lineage2M, the company recorded a 34 percent increase in revenue and 25 percent increase in operating profit.

“Lineage2M’s user traffic and revenue creation is more stable than that of Lineage M,” NCSoft said during the conference call held on Wednesday, referring to the game that marked the company’s most recent heyday.

Lineage2M’s performance is anticipated to be fully reflected in 2020, fanning the industry’s expectation that NCSoft will break through the 2 trillion won revenue mark for the first time.

Adding power to this anticipation is the upcoming new titles Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2M -- both original intellectual properties of NCSoft -- which are due to be released this year.

NCSoft strongly confirmed in the conference call that the success of Lineage2M will not result in postponement of Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2M.

However, the global launch of Lineage2M is not part of the company’s immediate plans, as the team of its developers are currently invested in quality control for the domestic market.

“For global launches, localization is key. We do not have the capability right now to make our developers focus 100 percent on localization,” NCSoft officials said.

“Going global is surely going to happen, but we haven’t finalized when and which country to launch Lineage2M in first,” he said.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)