Multiple Poor Performance Quarters And Throne And Liberty's "Weak Revenue Model" Usher In More NCSoft Layoffs

NCSoft hasn't had the best financial reports lately. The company has been on a downward trend since last year, and this past year hasn't been any kinder. There has been smaller bright sports here and there, like the bump Guilds Wars 2 sees due to expansions, but a rapid decline (particularly on the mobile side of things) has been particularly rough.

Now things seem to be getting worse as Yonhap News is reporting that the company will begin a mass re-organization to avoid becoming a "chronically loss-making company."

Not only will the restructuring result in layoffs, but the company will also institute voluntary retirement and resignation processes, something NCSoft hasn't done since 2012.

You're probably wondering about the latest jewel in the NCSoft crown, though, Throne and Liberty. Well, even before the MMO launched globally through a partnership with Amazon Games, we were already reporting on large player count declines in the Korean launch. Hell, NCSoft didn't even itemize the game on its financial report after the Korean launch.

Globally, Throne and Liberty has some damn high player counts still. While we don't have console totals, we can see that Steam Charts has the game usually clocking in at almost 200K players, a fact that NCSoft CEOs Taek-Jin Kim and Byung-Moo Park acknowledge. However, they also acknowledge that the MMO is unlikely to move the needle much on the financial side since NCSoft has to share profits with Amazon Games and, in their view, the game's global monetization is "weak".

I read that as "it isn't P2W enough and the gacha has been removed," but take it how you will.

"Although there will be immediate pain, it is an inevitable path to improve our constitution and make a leap forward as a company with our original creativity and enterprising spirit," says the company's leaders.

As a result, NCSoft will open 4 new physical division studios to take on creative projects, but the company as a whole is about to have another round of layoffs and some project cancellations.

So...yeah...about not seeing any update on Blade & Soul: NEO Classic in the past 8 months, besides in China or Korea.