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Massively Speaking Podcast
Massively Speaking Episode 185: Bree-to-play
Latest episode: Tuesday, February 7th, 2012



Reader Comments (6)
Posted: Aug 12th 2009 7:10PM (Unverified) said
So they shouldn't brag that much.
I still think that after the launching dust settles down Aion will be far behind EVE on line in subs numbers.
They could reach the Lotro number of subs after the 4 month launch. But I doubt it they could maintain those figures.
Aion will reach 150K subs in EU/NA combined after 1 year.
EVE will stay the number 2 without any doubt (at around 300 K subs).
Posted: Aug 12th 2009 11:23PM Nadril said
"From www.industrygamers.com
NCsoft just lost two key people in the West, but its business overall is going strong. Today the Korean MMO publisher announced its second-quarter and first-half earnings, noting that net income was up a whopping 451% in Q2, totaling 33.75 billion Korean won (US$27.3 million). Sales were up 70% to 137.77 billion Korean won. Operating profit was also way up, climbing 353% to 47.5 billion won
Aion, which launched last November in Korea and this July in Japan and Taiwan, brought in 40.6 billion Korean won. Lineage II wasn't far behind, generating 37.36 billion Korean won, followed by the first Lineage at 27.48 billion Korean won. City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars and others made up the remaining sales.
Thanks to the company's strong performances in the first couple quarters, NCsoft also raised its outlook for the full year to 586 billion Korean won ($470 million) in sales and 180 billion won ($144 million) in operating profit."
Yeah Aion is totally not doing well in the east. Not at all.
Posted: Aug 13th 2009 2:57AM Graill440 said
Posted: Aug 13th 2009 8:14AM Pylades said
Posted: Aug 13th 2009 9:36AM Kamokazi said
From what I've seen of Aion, I think it has the mass-market apeal that WoW does (some will be turned off by the anime-esque styling, but many WoW geeks like anime...). It also looks good, and runs well on older systems (not quite as old as WoW, but it does a very good job). The marketing push is also definately there as well, and they have a lot of hype going for it. Hype will often kill a MMO out the gate that isn't ready, but with Aion having been out in Korea nearly a year, it is very polished and feels like a retail product already, much moreso than any other MMO I have tried in recent years.
Remember games like Warhammer Online actually sold 800k copies, but they didn't stick around because the game was ultimately repetitive and unstable in high-end PvP. If Asia is any indicator, Aion is not a poor game. The only question is whether or not it will be as well recieved in the western market...and I think it will.
Posted: Aug 15th 2009 3:15AM (Unverified) said
Add the newly sold copies of a new launched product and the subscriptions hardly went anywhere the moment the free launch Beta period in China was over.
NO more subs mentioned also in thet quarter report. Wouldn't it be nice to talk about the so called millions of Aion players JUST before the western launch ???
The fact remains that the Chinese only went massively to the free Beta, but the moment Aion became a paid servcie in China the numbers weren't as great as the launching hype.
NCSoft made exactly the same wind with Lineage (supposed millions at launch in the east !) and the game has hardly any western subs (60K).
So much for the soulless .Korean copy.
Another dud in MMO land.
How many more Wow copies do we need before the money runs to our pockets run dry of inferior products....