NCsoft Profits Fall 43 Percent On Blackstar Costs

NCsoft reported a 43 percent year-over year drop in profits to $7.7 million, a decrease was due to a write-off expense for costs associated with The Blackstar Chronicles. The futuristic MMO, in development by Spacetime Studios, was ultimately dropped from NCsoft's lineup, and Spacetime will be pursuing the project on its own.

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.

Industry Insiders Discuss ESA, E3's Future

What's the fate of E3, and of the Entertainment Software Association? It's worth examining in light of recent events. This morning we broke the news that two major publishers, Activision and Vivendi, have decided to take a pass on the event and exit the trade association, while other companies have withdrawn their E3 attendance as well. At the same time, the ESA appears to be facing stirrings of industry discontent with the ESA's leadership, namely its current president, Mike Gallagher.

E3 is not the boon to publishers that it once was, says Penny Arcade's director of business development Robert Khoo, who as the organizer of the PAX fan expo clearly has an interest, to say the least, in how things turn out.

"The reason that E3 imploded in recent years was because the publishers felt that it turned into this sort of pissing contest between them... where they were trying to figure out who could one-up each other," Khoo said. "They all thought to themselves that it just wasn't worth it."

ESA Confirms Activision/Vivendi Departure

The Entertainment Software Association told Kotaku today that both Activision and Vivendi are no longer a part of the industry trade organization, confirming a rumor we broke earlier this morning.

"While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership. The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry's objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unchanged."

- Rich Taylor, Senior Vice President of Communications and Research, Entertainment Software Association

This comes a day after it was noted that Activision and a number of other notable publishers were not listed as showing at the industry's big conference.

Neither Activision nor Vivendi have responded to requests for comment. More as this breaking story unfolds.

NCsoft Introduces Fake Money For Fake Things

NCsoft's goal is to bring more and more people into the online gaming market, and part of achieving that goal is to continue to diversify how customers can pay and play," said Chris Chung, NCsoft North America's president. "This system will offer our customers much greater flexibility and convenience in paying for content.

NCsoft Shuts Down Illegal Servers

NCsoft Readies Two More Unreal MMOs

"Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems," said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft. "Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables designers to easily prototype concepts without the need for programming."

"I think that Dungeon Runners players will find these new features, especially the snowmen as being pretty cool...literally," said Stephen Nichols, Dungeon Runners' producer.

"Guild Wars is a proven success and has set a new standard for online RPG games with its unique business model and superior playability," said NCsoft CEO Taek Jin Kim.

Shanda Introducing NCsoft's Atrix To China

Tabula Rasa Totally Tanked? NCSoft Austin Downsizing?

Because of this disappointing result, some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. We are going to revamp our Austin development organization... I should admit that the actual result of Tabula Rasa has been disappointing... If you talk about our development cost we spent in the past several years, probably we are not making any money from this Tabula Rasa project. That should be the reality.

Tabula Rasa Adds Fuel-Efficient Hybrids

NCsoft's Chris Chung on Consoles, US Market, Direction

Lineage II Offers $10 Sex Change

NCsoft has just launched their new value-added services for MMO Lineage II, featuring name changes, server changes (coming soon), and the one we've all been waiting for - sex changes. For just $9.99 US you can trade in your outtie genitalia for an innie, or vice versa. Knowing how wishy-washy MMO players can be about their gender, the service allows you to change up to once a week, unless you are one of the winged Kamael, in which case you're already pretty close to gender neutral anyway. Launching alongside the discount nip and tuck is the name change service, which allows you to bury your bad reputation under another title for $29.99 as long as you remove yourself from any guilds and create a level 1 character with the desired name in order to reserve it. Once the server transfer service launches in a few weeks you will be able to start a completely new life as the woman or man you've always had lurking inside of you. Joy!

Lineage II Account Services Page [NCsoft]

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