Not surprisingly, Guild Wars 2 has become NCSoft’s most profitable game. The publisher released their quarterly earnings report with GW2 in the lead, followed closely by Lineage 1 and Blade & Soul.
To be honest, this isn’t the most exciting news — but it is interesting if you consider regional releases and cultural differences between international markets.
While Guild Wars 2 was the biggest earner in NCSoft’s third quarter, that amount is still only 27% of NCSoft’s sales. The majority of the company’s earnings are from games popular in South Korea (and to an extent, Japan). NCSoft’s other big earners are:
- Lineage – No longer has any official English server
- Blade & Soul – Not yet to be released outside of Korea
- Aion – Small playerbase outside of Korea
- Lineage 2 – Tiny playerbase outside of Korea
55% of their earnings come from Korea alone. Guild Wars 2 put their North American and European combined earnings up to 27%, as opposed to the combined 7% and 4% between quarter 2 and 2011’s quarter 3.
With all of this information in mind, it’s worth noting that GW2 has not made its way to Korea yet. Whether or not it will be successful has yet to be seen, but it’s going to be hard to compete with already established and popular MMOs in that market.
Source 1: NCsoft – Guild Wars 2 tops global sales for 3Q 2012
Source 2: NCSOFT
