NCsoft has released their financials for Q1 2010. Following up on my earlier post about City of Heroes / Villains’ performance, I’ve had a look. Sadly, results aren’t good. Chartreuse In Q1 2010, CoH/V recorded 3 348 m Won (about US $2.94m) – it’s lowest quarterly revenue to date. Previously, it was the Q4 2009 … Continue reading
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How Many Players Does Aion Have in Q1 2010?
I’m going to look at how City of Heroes / City of Villains faired in Q1 2010 in a little while, but news that Aion is going to be closing some servers in North America and Europe means this is a bit more pressing. NCsoft’s Q1 2010 financials are out and paint an interesting picture. … Continue reading
How Many Players Does Aion Have Anyway?
As a point of comparison to CoH/V the other day, Aion earned 89 846 million Won in Q4 2009. Doing the same kind of calculation – converting Won to $US ($76.9m) using an end-of-period exchange rate, dividing that number by $15 a month x 3 for the quarter (so $45) – you end up with … Continue reading
How Many Players Does CoH/V Have Anyway?
The core metric for assessing the size of a MMO is the number of active players. It’s a simple metric that is easy to understand and compare, even if it isn’t perfect (after all, revenue and profitability are probably more important regardless of player base size). It’s power is such that good numbers are trumpeted … Continue reading
Old News Is Still Interesting News
Matt Miller, aka Positron, former lead developer of CoH/V and now free creative element at Paragon Studios, spent a few days in Seoul at the end of last year. Given NCsoft’s headquarters is in Seoul, I don’t think he was going over just for the sights. Speculation to follow.
Game Devs Don’t Understand Players – Aion and Medals
Recently announced in Aion is a new reward system. A player distributed reward system. Taken off the announcement: “3) The most recent patch notes for 1.5.1 show that defending legions can now gain medals for successfully holding a fortress but many people feel this will not be enough incentive for fortress defense. Can you clarify … Continue reading
NCsoft Responds To My Article: “Alarmist” and “Sensationalist”
Massively got a response from NCsoft about my article on the future of CoH/V. The terms “alarmist” and “sensationalist” are used, as are how “excited” NCsoft is about the future of CoH/V. All fair enough and par for the course. This blog is my opinion and NCsoft is completely free to challenge that opinion. If … Continue reading
Why NCsoft Doesn’t Sell Off Its Failures
Adam Martin picked up on my previous entry and expanded it in a fantastic way based on his time there – basically, NCsoft Korea has too much money to bother with small projects, so only big projects are worth considering. I am a complete outsider here – not worked for NCsoft Korea or any other … Continue reading
City of Heroes / Villains 2009: Running Twice As Fast To Stay At The Same Place
UPDATE: I’ve repeated /facepalmed myself over getting Cryptic and Paragon Studios mixed up a few times in this article; Cryptic used to develop CoH/V but that is all handled by Paragon Studios now. Hopefully fixed! Also probably should have mentioned that DC Universe Online might launch in 2010, but this is still open to change. … Continue reading
Key NCsoft West People Head Out the Door
Jeff Strain (ArenaNet co-founder, current President of Product Development) and David Reid (President of Publishing) have both left NCsoft West at the same time. For “unrelated reasons”. I’m not going to call DOOOOM on this, but for both to leave a month before Aion launches makes me wonder if NCsoft West is going to get … Continue reading
World Class Villains 