Massively surprising
LOS ANGELES — Four years ago, mentioning NCsoft Corp. likely would have drawn blank stares from even the most dedicated U.S. video game player.
At the time, the South Korean maker of massively multiplayer online games, in which tens of thousands of gamers can simultaneously inhabit virtual worlds, had smash hits in Asia including “Lineage.”
Then two brothers from Austin, Texas, got involved.
Established in 2001 and led by chief executive Robert Garriott and brother Richard, NCsoft’s Austin, Texas-based North American division is now pumping out one hit after another — all of them online.
Market research firm DFC Intelligence predicts global revenues for online games will grow to about $5 billion next year from an estimated $3.5 billion in 2005.
As the market for online games expands into a multibillion dollar slice of the overall $10 billion video game industry, the Garriotts say they are uniquely positioned to take advantage of a market they helped pioneer in the 1990s.
Their strategy? Give people something beyond the never-ending worlds of dungeons and dragons found in such games as Sony Online Entertainment’s “EverQuest II” or Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft.”
While those games have been very successful, they hew to themes long dominant in the genre.
In NCsoft’s “City of Heroes,” launched a year ago, gamers could for the first time custom design their very own superheroes, then team up with other real people on the network to overthrow evil forces.
Sales of the game have exceeded company expectations, chalking up more than 130,000 registered users, all of them paying $50 for the boxed game plus a monthly subscription fee of about $15 a month.
The recently launch of “Guild Wars” returned NCsoft to a fantasy world of medieval warriors and monsters but still marked a big break from the usual persistent online fantasy game.
“Guild Wars” dispenses with much of the mundane tasks associated with becoming more powerful in such games — and there’s no subscription fee.
It’s currently among the top-selling PC games in the U.S. and Europe, and 250,000 people joined up in the first week it was available.
The company’s upcoming games include frantic “Mad Max” style vehicular battles in “Auto Assault,” a sequel to “City of Heroes” called “City of Villains,” as well as the sci-fi adventure “Tabula Rasa,” which is being overseen by Richard Garriott.
Richard and Robert’s roots in the industry go back to the early 1980s, when the two formed Origin Systems, Inc. At that point in the nascent games industry, the Internet as we know it didn’t even exist, and online multiplayer games were still unheard of.
Fast-forward to this year’s show, and NCsoft’s rapid growth is clearly evident. NCsoft occupied one of the larger booth areas, complete with a music stage and rows of oversized computer screens showing off new and upcoming titles.
“Online is the economic opportunity of the future,” said Richard. “As a creative person, it’s also the brave new world. Creatively, this is the most open feel, so I’m enjoying that.”
Robert compares the company’s future strategy to a cable television network, where subscribers will be able to pick from hundreds of different channels.
It’s a smart move for a company that has succeeded in finally getting the attention of U.S. gamers.
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