NCsoft Korea is reportedly restructuring after multiple weak revenue quarters

Korean media is reporting bad news for NCsoft, or at least fans of the company’s developers and games.

Seoul-based Yonhap News has a long piece out today on the Korean gaming giant’s now-finalized plans to restructure the entire company. We’ve previously covered some of the turmoil inside NCsoft that led to an angry investor meeting and even voluntary resignations earlier this year, but now the company is planning both voluntary retirements and layoffs. According to Yonhap, NCsoft hasn’t done voluntary retirement moves since 2012. The report also refers to ongoing closures of subsidiaries and spun-out support studios.

So why is NCsoft doing all this? Well, if you’ve been watching the company’s financials over the last few quarters, it’ll become immediately clear: The company has seen falling revenues over multiple quarters; where once the Lineage franchise was easy money, the Lineage titles (particularly the mobile games that made up two-thirds of the company’s incomes) have taken a massive hit over the last year, leading to weak sales.

And yes, unfortunately, a lot was riding on the launch of Throne & Liberty, whose Korean launch a year ago was seemingly so weak that NCsoft declined to report its per-game sales that quarter – another move it hasn’t made in a decade. “The TL global version released earlier this month is showing signs of success, surpassing 330,000 concurrent users for the PC version,” Yonhap argues. “However, it is expected to have only a limited impact on improving performance, as it has to share profits with the publisher, Amazon Games, and the revenue model (BM) itself is weak.” Ooof.

The publication doesn’t mention NCsoft’s western holdings, which have already been reorganized; in fact, at the same angry investor meeting months ago, NCsoft reps pointed toward Guild Wars 2’s ongoing financial success and its plans for Guild Wars 3 as a silver lining in its portfolio.