NCSoft's Games Take A Tumble In Q1 2018, Except For Newly F2P (In Korea) Aion

NCSoft released its financial statement for the first quarter of 2018 today. Nearly everything is down, which shouldn't be all that surprising. Some sort of a post-holiday-season revenue slump should normally be expected; for NCSoft, it's been that way in three out of the last four Q1s as compared to the previous Q4s, with the sole exception being a slight increase (about 2%) in revenue between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016.

In its most recent financial statement, NCSoft acknowledges the drop of 11% between quarters, but points out the 98% increase in year-over-year revenue, which it mostly attributes to mobile title Lineage M. As for its better-known -- at least in the West -- PC titles, Lineage, Lineage II, and Blade & Soul all dropped by about 10-15%, while Guild Wars 2 saw a sharper decline, from 34,903 million Korean won to 23,647 mKRW, a drop of 32%. That's not too surprising, considering that sales of the latest expansion, Path of Fire, have likely flattened, but it's still above the 15-20,000 mKRW the game was pulling in per quarter for most of 2016 and 2017.

The one riser on the list? Aion, strangely enough, which went from 12,691 mKRW to 18,761 mKRW, a stunning rise of 48%. NCSoft said that was "fueled by the change in the monetization scheme," which is likely the result of it going free-to-play in Korea in January.

You can find the NCSoft financial report on the company's Investor Relations page.