State of the NCsoft Union address
Robert Garriott, the soon-to-be former President of NCsoft North America, dropped a "State of the Union" style press release yesterday regarding the massive online gaming company. It's a brief but insightful rundown detailing what they've done with their Intellectual Properties (Tabula Rasa, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Lineage, Dungeon Runners, etc.) in the past year, and what they intend do with them in the coming year. Garriott also mentioned new projects they're working, like AION: Tower of Eternity, and the recently signed pact with Sony where NCsoft will be producing products for the PlayStation 3. While no details were given on exactly what those products may be, Garriott said the first one should be released by the end of 2008. This new deal includes porting "existing titles in interesting new ways or utilizing new IPs." Hmmm, intriguing.
Of particular interest to me was Robert's comments regarding the City of Heroes property. Back in early November NCsoft acquired the entire IP from Cryptic Studios - lock, stock and two smoking blaster barrels. Like wildfire the CoX forums were consumed by doomsayers and speculators decrying that this was the beginning of the end. Not so. According to Garriott, they loved the property so much they wanted to re-invest in it, and the best way to do that was to buy it. Since then they've created a whole new studio (NCsoft NorCal) and hired the entire CoH development team. If that wasn't enough to give even the most cynical gamer a glimmer of hope, they're currently hiring more people to take CoX to a "whole.. nutha... level."
Last but least... as reported yesterday, Robert Garriott will be leaving his post as President of NCsoft's North American business and moving into a role of global business development and planning. Taking his place will be NCsoft's current vice president of worldwide product development, Chris Chung, who has been with the company for some time. The change will take effect on January 1, 2008.
A Happy New Year indeed! All in all, I'd say the future looks very bright for NCsoft.
