Omali

Activision Blizzard is once again holding the news headlines hostage, between Black Ops 3, WoW subscriber news, the latest expansion, Hearthstone, Overwatch, the film studio, the Warcraft film, Blizzcon, and of course the quarterly finance releases you all love to pour over, but what is really turning heads and inspiring groans from the Blizzard base is the news that the developer publisher is acquiring King.

The second quarter revenue reports for NCSoft have come in a few weeks early, and the results are pretty much positive across the board. I know this is the part where I'd normally add "unless you play Wildstar," but I'm not going to do that this month. Given the figures presented in this quarter's report, I'm going to guess there aren't a whole lot of people left that such a message would actually apply to. So instead, I'll say that it's positive across the board unless you work on Wildstar.

I run a segment on my home website MMO Fallout called In Plain English, for the sake of giving updates on recent court proceedings. My reasoning is pretty simple: The news tends to stop reporting on legal matters once they have started, and when cases can go years without a resolution, tend to forget about them. Lawsuits are long, complicated, and when it comes to news headlines, 99% of the time they're just plain boring. A lot of motions, responses, and applications.

NCSoft has released their financial results for the first quarter of 2015, and the results are a mixed bag of the good and predictably bad. Blade & Soul has seen continued growth, the company is in an overall better position, and second half releases are set to bring in an infusion of cash. There is nothing to worry about.

Those of you who follow me back at my home, MMO Fallout, will be aware that I’ve been paying special attention to recent happenings over at Zynga. To put the news as short as I can: Zynga is replacing their unpopular CEO with an unpopular ex-CEO, and their investors are not happy.

Earlier this year I wrote an article about Jagex in which I gave my hopes that, following the shutdown of Transformers Universe, the company wouldn't be too eager to announce another new MMO. Just a month or so out of that closure, we learned through a job placement announcement that yet another MMO is in the oven.

NCSoft today released their earnings report for the 2014 fiscal year. While the company as a whole grew across the board, not everyone is presently drinking champagne and wearing silly hats at the NCSoft executive suite.