After the Lineage Eternal closed beta test in late 2016, NCSoft management revealed that the game "did not reflect NCSoft's characteristics". As a result, NCS announced that a new development team is being put into place and that a new development plan is being devised.
With few other facts to go on, it remains to be seen when, or even if, another closed beta event will take place in 2017.
These announcements were made during an investors' call where it was further revealed that NCSoft's first quarter profits are down nearly 60% from last year with poor online game sales leading the way. According to the Korea Times, year-on-year sales were down nearly 74%.
The poor quarterly earnings came as a shock as they are way below the market prospect of 80 billion won in operating profit and 260 billion won in sales. Poor sales of existing online games and increased payroll on a special incentive have led to the profit decrease. In particular, the sales generated by “Lineage,” which has been NCSOFT’s largest income source for more than a decade, stood at 51.5 billion won, down 35 percent from 78.9 billion won the year before.
NCSoft is planning to mobile and VR games based on existing titles including Aion and Blade & Soul.
You can check out the numbers below or by following any of the links above.
