It is the time of the year where major companies post their financial results for the 4th quarter of 2017 and the whole of 2017, and NCsoft is no exception. Results have shown that sales, profits, and income has all increased significantly (over 50%) when compared to the years of 2015 and 2016. 2017 is indeed a stellar year for NCsoft financially, definitely helped by mobile games (including royalties paid by Netmarble for Lineage II: Revolution).
If you noticed, NCsoft does not break down individual mobile games, and instead pile them together in an individual category. This might be due to the many IP franchising deals in place, and the fact that NCsoft only has one successful self-develop mobile game in Lineage M. And yes, the popularity of Lineage M has faded significantly since launch in South Korea. Still, mobile games sales represented 57% of NCsoft’s total revenue for the year of 2017.
Finally, during the conference call, NCsoft stated that there are 13 games currently in development, including mobile titles such as Blade & Soul 2, Aion Tempest, Lineage 2M, and the revamped Project TL for Windows PC. It was mentioned that Project TL will enter some sort of test phase “later this year.” The other Blade & Soul mobile game, Blade & Soul Revolution, was not mentioned as it is being developed by Netmarble. NCsoft is also working on various AR and VR projects, although it is too early to reveal any of them.
