NCsoft’s financials for the final quarter of 2018 are in, and it wasn’t the greatest report the South Korean gaming giant has ever submitted. While sales held mostly steady, the fourth quarter saw a dip in profits, a decrease of 41% year-over-year.
Where is the all money NCsoft is making coming from? It’s still mostly mobile, specifically Lineage M. The sales breakdown chart given to investors actually flattens and obscures just how much more money mobile is making than the standard MMORPG titles – almost twice as much in 2018 as Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars 2 all together.
Worth noting here for western MMO players is that Guild Wars 2 didn’t really have a bad year at all – in 2018, it made almost as much money as it did in 2017, even without an expansion.
Totally random: Did y’all know NCsoft owned a baseball team? I did not, but there’s a note in the report that some costs increased “driven by signing bonus for baseball player.” That led me to the NC Dinos, a pro team in South Korea owned by the gaming giant. It might be ex-Marlins player Drew Rucinski, who was picked up by the Dinos at the end of last year. This has been a strange rabbit hole. You’re welcome.
