Throne and Liberty kicked off its launch with phenomenal player engagement. Within its first week, it boasted three million players and a concurrent peak of 336,300 players. 24 million hours among players were clocked, and viewers spent a combined 11 million hours watching it on Twitch. Yet, despite all of that, the publisher of Throne and Liberty, NCSoft, is reported to start “restructuring.” Allegedly, this will include mass layoffs.
Per the Yonhap News Agency, the restructuring is due to “the repeated deterioration in performance and sluggish new releases.” Additionally, the restructuring will “target a significant number of employees belonging to game development and operation organizations.” Reportedly, NCSoft sunk a lot of money into the Lineage trilogy that hasn’t financially panned out.
BattleCrush and Hoyeon, two other NCSoft titles, also failed to meet sales expectations. Throne and Liberty, unfortunately — and despite its success — isn’t close to being enough to satisfy any of NCSoft’s financial burdens. “However, [Throne and Liberty] is expected to have only a limited impact on improving performance, as it has to share profits with the publisher, Amazon Games, and the revenue model itself is weak.”
‘throne and liberty’ publisher to start laying employees off
“It has been reported that along with the recommended resignation, a plan to accept voluntary retirement is also being discussed. The last time NCSoft implemented voluntary retirement was in 2012,” YNA reports. “NCSoft has been carrying out intensive management reform efforts since hiring co-CEO Park Byung-moo late last year. Last January, the subsidiary Entree Soft was shut down, and since April, after CEO Park officially took office, employees in non-development and support departments have been encouraged to resign.”
It’s getting to be exhausting. It’s hard to celebrate any game’s ability to break out early when there’s so much going on with any given publisher or developer in terms of their financial struggles. Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero! met a similar fate where, despite its near-immediate successes, publisher Bandai Namco still announced layoffs shortly after its release. Though some industry greats have offered potential solutions to these issues, it’s unclear if publishers will attempt any proactive measures to address these consistent problems.
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