If not for the write-off, NCsoft stood to gain in profit 48 percent on the quarter and 8 percent on the year. The publisher's sales increased 4 percent to $84.3 million on the popularity of the Lineage series in Asia and strong performance for Guild Wars and City of Heroes in North America and Europe.

In particular, NCsoft said its first quarter brought all-time record sales for Lineage II, which launched in 2003 and continues to be the company's top-selling title with 35 percent of the publisher's total sales.

NCsoft's U.S. sales reached $10.4 million in North America and $8.5 million in Europe, and $9.2 million in Japan, numbers dwarfed by its $47.7 million performance in Korea, which accounts for 57 percent of the publisher's total sales.

Later this year, NCsoft will launch its third closed beta for Aion, slated for a launch later this year. NCsoft will also roll out a more casual online portfolio with Point Blank, Punch Monster, Dragonica and Love Beat

"As proven once again in the Q1 financial results, we strongly believe our key franchise products, such as Lineage and Guild Wars, will meet our sales target with a strong customer base and continued content updates going forward," said NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee. "We plan to ensure the smooth launch of many new products in the next two to three years, which will strengthen our position as a global leader in online games."

NCsoft Signs Exclusive Game Development Deal with Sony Computer Entertainment

World's leading publisher of online computer games to create products
for PlayStation(r) platforms

Santa Monica, Calif., July 11, 2007 - NCsoft(r) Corporation
(KSE:036570.KS), the world's leading developer and publisher of online
games today announced an exclusive game development deal with Sony
Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) that provides for NCsoft to create
several online games for SCEI's PlayStation(r) platforms, including
PLAYSTATION(r)3 (PS3(tm)) and PSP(r) (PlayStation(r)Portable),
accessible through PLAYSTATION(r)Network. The announcement was made
today at the E3 Media and Business Summit taking place in Santa Monica,
California.

Although company officials did not divulge any details regarding the
names or types of games in development, NCsoft officials did say the
games would be created from both existing intellectual properties (IP)
owned by NCsoft, as well as new IP.

"This is a great step forward for online gaming," said Geoff Heath, CEO
of NCsoft Europe. "We are delighted to be working with Sony Computer
Entertainment. PS3, with its advanced Cell Broadband Engine(tm) and
standard hard disc drive on every unit, has already demonstrated it is a
truly versatile online platform that gives NCsoft the potential to
create massively multiplayer environments. Together with the
Internet-enabled PSP, we're confident that SCEI and NCsoft can develop
unique and compelling online experiences that will be found on no other
platform."

NCsoft is known for its highly successful online game products such as
the Guild Wars(r) and City of Heroes(r) brands and its flagship product
Lineage(r), which has a customer reach of more than 70 million
worldwide.

"NCsoft has established itself as one of the preeminent developers in
the online space," said Riley Russell, vice president of third party and
developer support, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Their track
record of creating successful online games is exactly what we are
looking for as we grow the PLAYSTATION Network, delivering new, rich
experiences on both PS3 and PSP. SCEI's hardware leadership matched
with NCsoft's extensive online experience are the hallmarks of what is
sure to be a fruitful relationship for both companies, ultimately
benefiting our core audience — the gamer."

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police, seven former employees of Lineage developer NCsoft are suspected of selling source code for online game Lineage III to a major Japanese game company. This past February, the seven game programmers resigned from the Korean game maker and interviewed with a Japanese game company. It's believed the source code was copied during this interview. What's more, it's also suspected that Lineage III's program design was leaked last September by either email or disk. Word on the street is that NCsoft has been in turmoil since a senior developer was axed for poor leadership skills. The majority of the senior dev's 90-member team cut after the firing. According to NCsoft, the potential damage caused by this source code comprise is over a billion dollars. Not exactly pocket change. Brian Ashcraft

Source Code Prob [Digital Chosunilbo]

If you are playing an MMO, chances are it's World of Warcraft, Lineage (I or 2), RuneScape or World of Warcraft. Alice at Wonderland points to this fascinating chart that shows the obvious: WoW is doing amazingly well (no duh), most other games ain't. Kinda surprising to see that EverQuest is posting Star Wars Galaxies subscription numbers. Then again, maybe not. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Wonderland]

Holy crap: over two hundred and eighty thousand cases of identity theft have been reported in South Korea in connection with NCSoft's Lineage.

Apparently, a number of individuals with access to various individual's personal information from their companies' databases leaked lists of various citizens' resident registration numbers to people who operated 'game rooms'. Then...

The seven gameroom operators reportedly hired about 100 part-time game players and made about 14.2 billion won ($15 million) in offline profits by selling cyber items obtained in the process of game-playing. Such items usually take long hours of play and a certain degree of luck. They are sold over Web sites to players for "real" money.

But even though NCSoft knew all about this, including senior NCSoft executives, they didn't actually do anything to stem the tide of stolen identities being used. They covered it up, afraid their profits would go down if it was common knowledge that their system was so insecure.

The article ends by mentioning that nearly a million more Lineage accounts are suspected of being linked to similar identity theft schemes, this time by Chinese hackers. Astonishing. Florian Eckhardt

Police investigate 10 Koreans over identity theft [JoongAng Daily National]

I have no idea what the source of this chart is, but glancing at the most current numbers it seems pretty accurate to me. (If you know the source, email me and I'll gladly update this post.)

While the dominance of World of Warcraft is unsurprising, it does look like its never-ending ascendancy may be slowing. The popular Lineage is taking a dive, nearly on par with its sequel, which for about a year was exceeding its player base. (I wonder what caused all those people to come back to Lineage in the last year?)

Can that many people be playing RuneScape? Their website says they've got 70k people or so playing right now, so I suppose a three-quarters of a million subscribers is possible, but I'd never even heard of it. Maybe we know the source of this chart after all: RuneScapes' savvy marketing team. Joel Johnson (Thanks, Llama3!)

Update: Thanks to everybody who pointed out the source of this chart, the very fine MMOGChart.com.

Another Tyrant [Napoleon Guide

An article over at WhatPC? points at a giant lawsuit being filed against NCSoft for identity theft in Lineage and Lineage 2. The suit is being filed by South Korean lawyers. Despite the fact that over 230,000 people have had their identities stolen in Lineage and Lineage 2, as of Tuesday, the article reports that only 1,000 people had joined in the class action suit.

Thanks, Sinner

Identity Theft Victims to Sue NCSoft [WhatPc?]

Fortunately, the victims suffered no financial damage. Yet, the threat remains very real. According to a domestic Internet security company, the average South Korean is a member of 27 websites — all of which require sensitive information for the users. They are actually more vulnerable to hacking as the Korean Information Security Agency states private information of 130,000 Koreans was available publicly online for ten months last year.

While NCSoft blames the government regs requiring ID numbers to verify users, Kang Dal-cheon at KISA's legal office says, "There is no law in South Korea that requires registration numbers for verification. They need a better alternative to using registration numbers, because, for example, a boy can use his father's registration number to enter an adult site. The government has been proposing that firms use other methods." May I suggest fingerprints?

Full Story Here [The Korea Times] Thanks, Jean-Fran ois!