South Korean developer and publisher NCSoft is set to execute a large wave of layoffs following another disappointing earnings report for the company, according to. The studio’s operating profit fell by 75% in the second quarter of 2024 when compared to the same period in the previous year. Revenue from mobile games, which make up roughly two thirds of the company’s total revenue, sank by 38% under the same variables, resulting in NCSoft barely breaking even at the moment.
In contrast, the game seems to be doing quite well globally, reaching over 336,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch and still having a peak of over 200,000 concurrent users every day on the platform. However, revenues from the global version are expected to be significantly smaller due to the weaker monetization mechanics in the Steam version and its income having to be shared with publisher Amazon Games.
Yonhap wrote that NCSoft has already laid off some workers in the first half of the year, mainly from supporting departments. The upcoming wave of layoffs is said to affect development and operations teams as well.Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany.