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RIP Wildstar


Barnabas666

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I know, this isnt Wildstar forum, but i think some ppl here may be interested.

“Today, we are closing Carbine Studios and will begin the process of winding WildStar down to ultimately shutter the game,” NCSoft said in a statement. “WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut off. We are also in the process of identifying the teams that will be doing the work to bring WildStar to a close. These decisions are very difficult to make and we are in the midst of shifting as many of our teammates as possible into other roles within the organization.”

Info from Kotaku server

https://kotaku.com/wildstar-developer-carbine-studios-shuts-down-1828862729

 

Community manager on Wildstar forum: Hey all -- the most I can say at this time is that there will be more information coming, but I can confirm that we are closing Carbine Studios and will begin the process of winding WildStar down to ultimately shutter the game. WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut down. We will have details about the game’s closure, and more, in the coming weeks.

Topic on Wildstar forum

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/topic/157431-wildstar-developer-carbine-studios-shutsing-down/?page=1

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Lineage, Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, Exteel, City of Heroes, MXM and now Wildstar. I guessed right that next one will be Wildstar after MXM but I didn't know it will be this soon. Who is next between L2 and Aion? Both are in bad shape over here.
 

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That's precisely the point. As you can see, the revenue generated by Lineage 2 worldwide has dropped from 14.2 billion Won to 13.3 billion Won, which is the 4th drop in series, an inexorable journey downwards. The revenue generated by NCWest ("US/Europe" in the graphics) has dropped from 37.5 billion Won to 32.2 billion Won, the 2nd consecutive drop. No money, no future.

Lineage 1, on the other hand, could increase its revenue from 28.2 billion Won to 42 billion Won, according to Chief Financial Officer Yun Jae-su thanks to their new Grim Reaper server, a kind of casual server with limited game time, limited max.level and limited cash shop items:
https://lineage.plaync.com/powerbook/wiki/그림리퍼 서버

The Lineage 2 PvP server Bloody has no L2Store gambling and is quite successful:
https://forums.lineage2.com/topic/2653-nova-vs-ms-vs-roa-vs-rmt-who-will-dominate-na-classic/?tab=comments#comment-19743
The Lineage 1 relaxed server Grim Reaper has a greatly limited cash shop and is quite successful. Will NCWest see the signs? :D

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11 hours ago, Yidao said:

That's precisely the point. As you can see, the revenue generated by Lineage 2 worldwide has dropped from 14.2 billion Won to 13.3 billion Won, which is the 4th drop in series, an inexorable journey downwards. The revenue generated by NCWest ("US/Europe" in the graphics) has dropped from 37.5 billion Won to 32.2 billion Won, the 2nd consecutive drop. No money, no future.

Lineage 1, on the other hand, could increase its revenue from 28.2 billion Won to 42 billion Won, according to Chief Financial Officer Yun Jae-su thanks to their new Grim Reaper server, a kind of casual server with limited game time, limited max.level and limited cash shop items:
https://lineage.plaync.com/powerbook/wiki/그림리퍼 서버

The Lineage 2 PvP server Bloody has no L2Store gambling and is quite successful:
https://forums.lineage2.com/topic/2653-nova-vs-ms-vs-roa-vs-rmt-who-will-dominate-na-classic/?tab=comments#comment-19743
The Lineage 1 relaxed server Grim Reaper has a greatly limited cash shop and is quite successful. Will NCWest see the signs? :D

See the signs? I’d be amazed if any newest employee can walk and chew gum at the same time. 

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21 hours ago, Yidao said:

That's precisely the point. As you can see, the revenue generated by Lineage 2 worldwide has dropped from 14.2 billion Won to 13.3 billion Won, which is the 4th drop in series, an inexorable journey downwards. The revenue generated by NCWest ("US/Europe" in the graphics) has dropped from 37.5 billion Won to 32.2 billion Won, the 2nd consecutive drop. No money, no future.

These graphs are always a bit cryptic and leave me with questions. While we see that journey downwards for every of their game, it's not the same drop everywhere, worldwide. NCWest has merged L2 servers last year and now this year. Population also dropped due to more reasons. They merged Aion servers last year, down to only two and population went down significantly, more or less because of cash shop and other NCWest bad decisions.  They had to close MXM and now Wildstar.

In the same time I think these games are weighting little in comparison to a game like B&S or GW2. Naming NCWest US/Europe makes no sense for games like L2/Aion as they have other publishers now in Europe but for the other two games mentioned it is still applied. When I saw a stream for the new update in B&S, maybe 1-2 months ago, there were 4k+ viewers at least. When you see an Aion update for NA (haven't seen one for L2 in a long time) you can barely see reaching hundreds viewers. And there are many wales, as I've seen it while I've played B&S for some time.

The point is, L2/Aion is really reaching for the bottom here in NA and from my point of view games like B&S or GW2 keeps NCWest afloat, so the graph would be more skewed. In the same time I look at Aion in Europe under GF publisher. They have eight servers, two more to come with the next big update, has estimated 10-15 times the population of NA and it's also a lot bigger than the one in South Korea. There is also Aion under Innova with significant population. These things I don't see them mentioned in their reports because other publishers are excluded, it's a breakdown for NC subsidiaries.

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Those graphs must indeed be taken with a grain of salt. Like for example naming NCWest "US/Europe" goes back to the days of "City of Heroes", where the European servers were run out of Brighton. NCWest is still holding on to that office, they even have some furniture in there which obviously gets dusted on a regular basis:

Brighton_studio.jpg
https://us.ncsoft.com/uk/contact-us/

So technically the designation on the Excel graph is true. I guess another reason why they stick to the "US/Europe" pretense is to make the earnings reports comparable over the years - give what is now called NCWest and used to be called NC Interactive, and before that NCNA, always the same label when it comes to accounting. The revenue contributed by true European publishers like Innova for Lineage 2 or Gameforge for Aion can be found under  "Royalty".

Another thing I don't like about those Excel graphs is that the top is always at the same height, no matter what the absolute numbers. The 34 million dollars Guild Wars 2 generated in the 4th fiscal quarter 2017 seems to be at the same level as the 16 million that Lineage 2 brought in the 2nd quarter 2017, while in reality it's more than twice as much:

ncsoft-sales-quarter.jpg
https://mmos.com/news/ncsoft-reports-q2-2018-earnings-revenues-across-games-except-lineage

If all graphs would be at the same scale you could barely see a millimeter of Lineage 2 when compared to the revenue generated by NCsoft's mobile games :D

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