NCsoft Sales, Profits Surge Following Global Aion Launch

The worldwide release of NCsoft's fantasy MMO Aion: The Tower of Eternity has proved a success, with the Korean online game publisher announcing an 836 percent leap in year-over-year quarterly profits on revenues that more than doubled. NCsoft's first half of 2009, which benefited from Aion's Korean launch, had already far eclipsed the preceding quarters, but the third quarter's KRW 46.88 billion (US$40.60 million) in profits and KRW 166.28 billion (US$144.00 million) in revenues were up a further 39 percent and 21 percent, respectively, over the second quarter thanks to Aion's more recent launch in North America and Europe. The company said its "proportion of overseas sales surged due to Aion's sales in Japan, Taiwan, U.S., and Europe." Overall, the game has been responsible for more than half of NCsoft's total sales in this financial reporting period. It's a welcome rebound for a company that saw sales cut in half during the same period last year, following disappointing performance by the sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa. Aion has seen strong retail performance right out of the gate. The game was on sale for only seven days of the third quarter in North America and five days in Europe, but in that time it apparently managed to sell a total of 970,000 boxed units split roughly evenly across those two territories.