After its earnings during the July-September period nosedived, game developer NCSoft vowed to beef up its global operations, especially in the mobile game segment.
Yoon Jae-soo, chief financial officer of the Korean game company, said in a conference call Wednesday that the company would recruit “up to 100” more developers at its mobile game studio in Silicon Valley.
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| NCSoft CEO Kim Taek-jin. |
The announcement is in line with the company’s initiatives to diversify its business portfolio in order to secure new revenue sources amid decreasing profits and put more focus on the mobile game business, which has long been pointed out as the firm’s Achilles’ heel.
NCSoft has recently started charging for some services of online science-fiction shooter “Wildstar” in the North American market, which he said would boost the firm’s sales in the region in the coming months.
The Korean company plans to launch the mobile version of online game “Blade & Soul” in the Chinese market next year.
It had completed several beta tests in June and September this year, and is in discussion with Chinese game publisher Tencent for the release schedule, according to the CFO.
Yoon also said there are three projects underway for developing new mobile games at its U.S. game studio.
The game developer, which had clashed head on with Nexon over management control of NCSoft, posted 196 trillion won ($174 billion) in sales in the third quarter this year, down 8 percent on-year, and 51 billion won in operating profit, down 38 percent compared to the same period last year.
The company earned 127 billion won in sales in Korea, 26 billion won in the U.S. and Europe, 11 billion won in Japan and 9 billion won in Taiwan. It also earned 23 billion won in royalties from global publishers.
By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
