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Counterattack of NCSOFT

Posted February. 12, 2016 07:24,   

Updated February. 12, 2016 07:34

한국어

Having competed for the first or second place in the game industry with its mega-hit online game “Lineage,” NCSOFT has recently been left with a poor performance report. On Thursday, the company announced that the last year’s consolidated sales maintained similar performance of 2014 at some 838.8 billion Korean won (approx. 698 million U.S. dollars) while its operating profits decreased by 15 percents from the previous year to 237.5 billion won (approx. 198 million dollars). Unlike the other two game development companies of Nexon and Netmarble Games who enjoyed the record high performance last year, NCSOFT has gone down to the third place in the market.

The gaming industry analyzes the failure of NCSOFT is because it missed what is called “mobile golden time.” Headed by Kim Taek-jin, NCSOFT has shown its strength in massive multiplayer online role-playing game such as “Lineage.” The company had greatly enjoyed the flush times up until the mid-2000 when PC rooms used to be everywhere. In 2013 when the ball is in the court of mobile game industry, however, NCSOFT’s core identity turned into a sticking point. Benchmarking successful mobile games in overseas market, Netmarble Games has safely landed in the market and Nexon was quick to develop massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). NCSOFT, however, made late response to the market.

Aiming to turn the game around, NCSOFT is now seeking a remedy by putting all its resources to mobile and global market. Its mega-hit PC games of “Blade & Soul” and “Lineage” will soon be launched as mobile game in the market. From late 2015, the company has used its intellectual property (IP) such as characters of successful games and original soundtrack for its mobile games. The remedy seems to have already kicked in as its sales during the fourth quarter of 2015 increased some 21 percents quarter-on-quarter.

“We focused more on the growth of key IPs and preparation for new works through sales diversification home and abroad in 2015. This year, we will go all out to launch new mobile games in the global market,” said NCSOFT’s CFO Yoon Jae-soo.

It’s not just NCSOFT who lost keeping track of market changes to mobile game and is belatedly making all out effort to keep abreast. With the success of “FIFA Online 2” in the market, Neowiz Games that runs its own game portal, Pmang, used to be the second or third strongest market player. As the sales of its web board games declines and it missed the timing to move over to mobile market, Neowiz Games stopped short of gaining 190.1 billion won (approx. 158 million dollars) in sales and some 15.8 billion won (approx. 13 million dollars) in operating profits. In terms of sales, it comes in the neighborhood of tenth place in the market.

Planning to introduce some 10 different mobile games in sports and RPG from the second quarter of this year, Neowiz Games is seeking to bring about a major breakthrough.

Having introduced “Hangame,” the very first online game portal in 1999, NHN Entertainment had enjoyed its heyday up until the mid-2000. Back then, PC web board game was a big hit. Today, the company is keen on changing its identity.

Its recent mobile puzzle game of “Friends Pop” is enjoying notable success. Now, NHN Entertainment plans to be more aggressive in publishing mobile games. Furthermore, the company is expanding its business into mobile platform services such as mobile payment service called “Payco,” and contents business like sound source and webtoon.



곽도영 now@donga.com