NCsoft Q3 2023: Mobile MMOs, not the classic PC titles, are dragging NCsoft down

If you were hoping that NCsoft’s financials might perk up in Q3 after a full year of downward incline, I’m afraid I’ll be disappointing you with some unpleasant graphs here in this post. As it happens, NCsoft saw yet another drop in revenues and profits this quarter: a 4% drop compared to last quarter and a 30% drop since this quarter last year.

But before you MMORPG fans panic, know that the problem isn’t PC MMORPGs. In fact, the company’s PC games were down only slightly for the year and actually up compared to last quarter, which NCsoft attributes to effects from “various content updates and expansion pack” launches. It’s actually the company’s mobile titles that have created this steep decline, particularly Lineage W, whose revenues have fallen to less than half what they were in Q3 2022, and Lineage 2M, which has seen a 35% drop since the same time frame.

Some of those players might be heading back to basics as Lineage I, Aion, and Blade & Soul all saw small boosts since spring. Guild Wars 2, likewise, saw a slight bump in Q3 – it launched Secrets of the Obscure in August – though it’s not quite soaring to its post-End of Dragons heights, in spite of the September claim from ArenaNet that SOTO outperformed its expectations. We must note here that the big spike in End of Dragons-inspired revenue was counted in the quarter after it launched, so we suspect the same will happen with SOTO in Q4 given the way NCsoft reports these data. Check back in three months.

Meanwhile, Throne & Liberty is still waiting for its proper release while clogging up the company’s pipeline; it’s expected to launch the first week of December for Korea, with the western launch pushed off to next year.