service games, there are many frustrating situations where it’s hard to find a quick solution. We need people who never give up. By authenticity, I mean being true to our purpose and the values that drive us. I want people who truly value being genuine. This also applies to our communication with the players’ community. Last, but not least, we want a great team player who understands how important good teamwork is to our success.


NCSOFT has also been exploring new genres, like the “idle MMO”. Can you share your thoughts on experimenting with non-MMO genres and how they fit into your company’s broader portfolio? We have a handful of active, curious, industrious developers in Korea who are constantly watching the industry’s tendencies and behaviors. The idle genre is a fairly young genre. Many players are constantly on their PCs and their phones doing many things at once, whether it’s playing a game while chatting on Discord, checking their phones, and doing homework. The idle game suits these players because it’s a low-demanding genre that needs to be checked on occasionally and provides a sense of long-term fulfillment and progress. Using our Lineage IP and assets, we created a fun and unique idle MMO called Journey of Monarch, and we’re monitoring carefully how our players react now. Our teams feel there are also new and different kinds of online


(games-as-a-service) titles, and many branches or variations of MMOs that haven’t been explored. We are looking to publish games players are familiar with, such MMOs, but with new tweaks, and we’re also planning on bringing other kinds of games to the market, such as action games and shooters.


In your experience, what are the biggest differences between the Western and Eastern approaches to game development and publishing, and how do you plan to address those differences? I’ll say ‘Korean’ instead of ‘Eastern’ because I’m not sure if my experience with the Korean market can be applied to all the Asian markets. Though there are common market characteristics, each market is unique. Amongst many, probably the biggest difference is that Korean


devs approach games from a “live-service” perspective to game development and publishing. Most Korean games are live-service games. And it was the case from the very beginning. The first- generation game companies in Korea established back in ‘90s all started with online games that had frequent content updates. This was not the case with most Western developers and


publishers. I think many of the differences in publishing approaches come from that. Korean game devs and publishing teams are used to frequent game updates, day-to-day live- operation tasks, and close monitoring activities in the communities. Western developers, traditionally, have been more familiar with the “package game” business, and there are lots of strengths that also come from that experience. I believe the best way to address those differences is just to combine strengths and learn from each other.


Given the volatility of the gaming industry, how does NCSOFT manage risk when launching games in both Eastern and Western markets, and what steps are you taking to ensure you see long-term success? For us, the best strategy to mitigate risk in this volatile gaming industry is to diversify our portfolio, expanding to more genres and to more platforms. And strengthening our live-service capabilities as well. We’re working very hard to make our Western publishing business bounce back this year through those efforts. We’re one of the first in the world to create MMORPGs and one of the


very few publishers who have managed multiple large-scale MMORPGs globally for almost 30 years. We understand how to manage the live- service games business. We have such extensive experience in live- service games. In the recent past, things didn’t work out well in the West for many


reasons but with the right approaches and better value propositions, I believe our titles will see bigger success in the Western markets. To ensure long-term success for our upcoming global projects, I’m working on setting up better org structures and more cooperative processes between NCSOFT Korea, our devs, and NC America, so we can work closely together using our different market expertise.


Looking ahead to 2025, what are your key objectives for the year and how do you envision the company’s growth and adaptation in an evolving market landscape? I’m optimistic about how 2025 will shape up for gamers. We just put out Blade & Soul NEO, and it’s seen great response, and we have a number of strong updates to Lineage II (Wolf) and Aion coming up. So… Our key objectives? Make gamers happy. Reach more gamers. And build a good reputation as a publisher. I must admit that we don’t have a great reputation in the West at the moment and my team’s biggest goal is to regain the players’ trust and create a good relationship with the community by providing great gameplay experiences to them. I believe we’ve already made progress in that regard.


How do you plan to measure that success? Many people in the industry probably think the ultimate measuring stick is sales and if you see strong sales with your games, you know your games are resonating with players. But sometimes the games that generate the biggest sales are not necessarily players’ favorite games or the ones that have the best reputation in the market. Especially for a live-service game publisher, sales isn’t everything.


We will measure our success by seeing our community growth, by delivering on our promises to our players and making them happy, and by listening to them and incorporating their feedback into the games so they continue to play our titles and make their communities thrive for as long as possible. Sales move up and down. I, of course, care about those numbers,


but I always ask my team to look at our players’ communities and see how players enjoy our games and make sure we keep improving our games for them. Those are our top priorities. When more players love our games and when they see the value of what we offer for them to purchase, sales will follow.


February/March 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 35


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