Korean game publishers’ Q2 earnings mixed on flagship IPs

Nexon Games Co. headquarters. [Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

South Korean game majors achieved mixed results for the second quarter, which was largely dependent on whether or not they have popular intellectual property (IP) content.

Nexon Games Co. announced Wednesday that it posted an operating profit of 264 billion won for the April-June period, up 19.8 percent from the same period a year ago. Sales were up 10.4 percent to 902.8 billion won during the same period.

The company said that its sales were in line with the estimates as it was able to achieve strong performance in various genres from authentic football games spanning PC and mobile such as “FIFA Online” and “FIFA Mobile” to hits in the subculture genre such as “Blue Archive” that are popular at home and in Japan.

Multi-player role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as “Wars of Prasia” and “HIT2” were also popular, it said.

Nexon continued its growth trend in the second quarter but NCSoft Corp. and Netmarble Corp., two other game publishers, saw lackluster results that were below market expectations.

Their results were affected by the waning influence of their established IPs and the underperforming new releases.

NCSoft announced that its operating profit plunged 71.3 percent on year to 35.3 billion won in the second quarter. Sales also fell 30 percent to 440.2 billion won during the same period.

Netmarble also incurred an operating loss of 37.2 billion won in the second quarter, staying in the red for a sixth straight quarter.

NCSoft, in the meantime, said that the release schedule for four mobile games initially planned for launch by the end of this year has been postponed.

“Puzzup: Amitoi” is being planned for global release within this year but “Battle Crush” and “Blade & Soul S” are scheduled for release in the first half of next year, according to NCSoft’s Chief Financial Officer Hong Won-jun.

Hong said that “Project G” is also set to launch in the second half of next year.

Regarding the highly anticipated title, “Throne and Liberty,” the video game maker said that it plans to first release the game in Korea in December this year, reflecting feedback received during testing in May. Global release will be followed after discussions with Amazon Games.