NCsoft Signs Exclusive Game Development Deal With Sony Computer Entertainment

World’s Leading Publisher of Online Computer Games to Create Products for PlayStation® Platforms
E3 Media & Business Summit 2007

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NCsoft® Corporation (KSE:036570.KS), the world’s leading developer and publisher of online games today announced an exclusive game development deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) that provides for NCsoft to create several online games for SCEI’s PlayStation® platforms, including PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable), accessible through PLAYSTATION® Network. The announcement was made today at the E3 Media and Business Summit taking place in Santa Monica, California.

Although company officials did not divulge any details regarding the names or types of games in development, NCsoft officials did say the games would be created from both existing intellectual properties (IP) owned by NCsoft, as well as new IP.

“This is a great step forward for online gaming,” said Geoff Heath, CEO of NCsoft Europe. “We are delighted to be working with Sony Computer Entertainment. PS3, with its advanced Cell Broadband Engine™ and standard hard disc drive on every unit, has already demonstrated it is a truly versatile online platform that gives NCsoft the potential to create massively multiplayer environments. Together with the Internet-enabled PSP, we're confident that SCEI and NCsoft can develop unique and compelling online experiences that will be found on no other platform.”

NCsoft is known for its highly successful online game products such as the Guild Wars® and City of Heroes® brands and its flagship product Lineage®, which has a customer reach of more than 70 million worldwide.

“NCsoft has established itself as one of the preeminent developers in the online space,” said Riley Russell, vice president of third party and developer support, Sony Computer Entertainment America. “Their track record of creating successful online games is exactly what we are looking for as we grow the PLAYSTATION Network, delivering new, rich experiences on both PS3 and PSP. SCEI’s hardware leadership matched with NCsoft’s extensive online experience are the hallmarks of what is sure to be a fruitful relationship for both companies, ultimately benefiting our core audience -- the gamer.”

About NCsoft Corporation

Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, NCsoft Corporation is the world’s leading developer and publisher of online games. Founded in 1997, NCsoft is home to Lineage, the world’s most successful online role playing game and also to Lineage II, City of Heroes and City of Villains®, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions™, Guild Wars Nightfall™ and Auto Assault®. In coming months, NCsoft is poised to launch other massively multiplayer titles including Tabula Rasa™ and Aion™ in addition to various casual games via its game portal, PlayNC. NCsoft has offices in North America, the United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, China and Thailand. In fiscal year 2006, NCsoft posted revenues of KRW 338.7 billion. For more information about NCsoft visit http://www.PlayNC.com.

Visit Sony PlayStation on the Web at http://www.us.playstation.com.

“PlayStation,” “PLAYSTATION,” “PSP,” and “PS one” are registered trademarks and “PS3” and “Cell Broadband Engine” are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, PlayNC, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall, Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, ArenaNet, Lineage, Auto Assault and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. City of Heroes, City of Villains and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cryptic Studios, Inc. and NCsoft Corporation. Cryptic Studios is a trademark of Cryptic Studios, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

• Shouts and cries are back by popular demand! Additionally, new shout and cry sound effects have been added for some races.
• The placeholder sound for blocking, parrying, critical hits, and a few other skill feedback sounds has been replaced with the proper sound effects.

• The Spider now has greater reserves of his signature deadly poison, and a willingness to use it.
  
• The Angmarim and his Drake servitors are more dangerous now. The drakes are more likely to use their wing flap skills to send players flying away from them.
• The chest containing Drugoth's crown in Helegrod will no longer destroy itself if it is opened and then closed.

• The generation ratio between Smithing and Precious ores has been restored to their pre-patch weightings of 3:1
• Guards located at the ressurection circles throughout the Ettenmoors will no longer be affected by fear.
• Fixed an issue with NPCs that were showing the pending quest ring and displaying a list of pending quests that had an invalid retry time.
• Captain: Herald Armaments will now increase your Herald's ability to mitigate damage (they were doing the opposite before).
• Captain: Telling Mark will once again enable your Herald to use his skills.
• If you are defeated in the "The Thief-taker's Bane" you will no longer reappear where you were defeated. Instead you will be taken to a nearby defeat circle (rally point? whatever we call these in-game.)
• Added admin commands to free items stuck in Landroval's mail system
• Additional server-side maintenance

The Lord of the Rings Online -- Book 10 (PC)
Turbine announces its next update, continues the epic storyline and gives players a bird's-eye view of Middle-earth.
By Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch | July 9, 2007

 
One must credit Turbine for not sitting on its hands. Just weeks after releasing the first large content update for its MMO The Lord of Rings Online, the company announced to GameSpy that it's hard at work on a second major expansion for the game.

According to the press release accompanying the announcement, the free content update will add over 100 new quests, a dozen new monsters and a number of new dungeons. More significant than mere content enhancements, though, are the upcoming additions to the MMO's gameplay systems, which includes a new reputation and bartering system and so-called "session play" characters which include the Ranger and Troll PvP classes

The fictional centerpiece of the new expansion is Book 10 of the continuing "Epic" storyline of The Lord of the Rings Online. The "Epic" consists of a long series of involved quests that players can to follow throughout their avatar's leveling process. Starting at level one, a player's character will be recruited by members of the Fellowship of the Ring to follow story threads that weave in and around the original story detailed by Tolkien in his classic trilogy, separate from other short-term or location-based quest series.

Book nine, released in the last free content upgrade ("Shadows of Evendim,") involved the players in a plot to recover an ancient jewel that belongs in the pommel of Aragorn's mighty sword Narsil. Book 10 continues that storyline with the players fighting against a new villain named Amartheil, attempting to prevent her from recovering her own magic ring and steal back a palantir before it falls into the Witch-King's hands.


The update will also introduce a number of gameplay enhancements. First is a new reputation and bartering system that enables players to earn positive and negative standings with various groups in Middle-earth. The system is obviously inspired by a similar system in rival MMO World of Warcraft, down to the ability to trade dropped items for rewards such as armor sets and mounts. How this will translate to the Lord of the Rings setting where lore forbids inter-faction squabbling should be interesting to see. This should, however, come as welcome news to casual gamers who were worried that the addition of the game's first raid zone in "Shadows of Evendim," might signal a shift in Turbine's original focus on the casual game experience.

The update also adds so-called "session play" to the game. Session play allows players to use destiny points (account-level currency) to buy temporary characters for use in specified ways. The first session play additions are for players who enjoy Monster Play PvP. The first is an addition to Sauron's forces -- the ability to play as a Troll. There's no word yet whether the Troll is a class in itself or if it has been split into subclasses in the same way as the Orc. The second class is the Free People's first monster play-specific enhancement -- the Ranger. Players who spend enough destiny points will be able to acquire one of the legendary brethren of Aragorn for use in the Ettenmoors.

The final addition to the game will strike some as genius and some as ridiculous. It's called "critter play." Critter play is session play that takes place in the game's PvE sections. Unlike the monster play version of session play, critter play offers gamers the chance to adventure in the world of Middle-earth as -- wait for it -- a chicken. The chicken character will have its own statistics, combat abilities and its own quest lines including the ability to converse with many of Middle-earth's furrier heroes including Wolf, Grip and Fang, Farmer Maggot's trio of hounds. Quest lines apparently revolve around a plague of Enemy-influenced wolves that threaten the Free People's war effort. Players who finish the critter play storylines can apparently earn a unique weapon or other item for their main character and plans are already underway for more animal adventures. Of course, what a chicken can do to stop Mordor's advance has yet to be determined, but it should be interesting to find out.

No release date for the update has been announced.

Play on Roheryn on July 11th and Win Prizes!

Please join us on Roheryn to check out the preview server between 11AM – 2 PM EDT on July 11th. If you play on that server during the LOTRO downtime, you may be randomly selected to win one of five 60-day game cards, and one lucky winner will win an e-GeForce 8800 GTS Graphics Card!

Download the Roheryn test client now and get ready to join in the fun!

Players who log in to Roheryn Wednesday, July 11, between 11am and 2pm EST will be entered into a drawing to win an e-GeForce 8800 GTS Graphics Card or one of five 60-day LOTRO pre-paid game cards!

One First Prize
One winner will be randomly chosen from all players who log in and play LOTRO on the Roheryn server on Wednesday, July 11, between 11am and 2pm EDT. The winner will receive:
• e-GeForce 8800 GTS Graphics Card (approx. retail value: $279.00)

Five Second Prizes
Five winners will be randomly chosen from all players who log in and play LOTRO on the Roheryn server on Wednesday, July 11, between 11am and 2pm EDT. The five winners will receive:
• 60-Day Pre-paid LOTRO Game Card (approx. retail value: $29.99)

Please stay in the game the entire time between 11am and 2pm EDT!
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

Marvel Comics buries Captain America
By COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press Writer


NEW YORK - It's a funeral fit for a superhero. In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers — Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms. Marvel — carry a casket draped with an American flag.


Yes, folks, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics' "Fallen Son," due on newsstands the morning after Independence Day. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.

He was headed to court after refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act, a move that would have revealed his true identity. A sniper who fired from a rooftop was captured as police and Captain America's military escort were left to cope with chaos in the streets.

But the sniper didn't act alone, and didn't even fire the shot that killed the captain.

Writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in his most recent titles. A book centered on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; and Spider-Man battled depression.

With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it's hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.

"Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that's at war, we are being perceived differently in the world," Loeb said. "He wears the flag and he is assassinated — it's impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of present day."

But Loeb says he was working with more personal material: the death of his 17-year-old son from cancer.

"So many people have lost their sons and daughters over the years, for the greater good or to cancer or other horrible things," said Loeb, an executive producer for NBC's "Heroes." "I wanted this to be something people would identify with."

In the final frames of the book, the Falcon delivers a eulogy asking superheros old and young to stand up and honor Captain America. Loeb did a similar thing at his son's funeral.

"It was this moment where I realized that we were all different, but this boy, my son, made us all connected," he said. "It was powerful."

Captain America, whose secret identity was Steve Rogers, was an early member of the pantheon of comic book heroes that began with Superman in the 1930s.

He landed on newsstands in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor — delivering a punch to Hitler on the cover of his first issue, a sock-in-the-jaw reminder that there was a war on and the United States was not involved.

Since then, Marvel Entertainment Inc., has sold more than 200 million copies of Captain America magazine in 75 countries.

In the most recent story line, he became involved in a superhero "civil war," taking up sides against Iron Man in the registration controversy, climaxed by his arrest and assassination.

Marvel says you never know what will happen. He may make it back from the dead after all, although Loeb says that question isn't really important right now.

"The question is, how does the world continue without this hero?" he said. "If that story of his return gets told further down the line, great. But everyone's still been dealing with his loss.

"They aren't going to wake up and it's a dream, like it's some episode of 'Dallas.'"

Time for an update!!

06.25.07 by Rusty


First of all, the Contract is signed. A joint press release will be going out tomorrow morning, but it’s important to all of us here that our community hear it first and here it straight from us. So without further ado:

 Pirates of the Burning Sea will be published in partnership with Sony Online Entertainment’s Platform Publishing. This is an important deal for Flying Lab Software and we know how passionate our community is about this issue. So before you start posting your thoughts on our forums, let me share how this particular arrangement differs from publishing deals you may have read about in the past.

So what is “Platform Publishing”? It’s a partnership program in which SOE and an independent developer work together to release a game. It’s very different from SOE’s main publishing efforts, where they develop the games internally (i.e. Everquest 2, Star Wars: Galaxies). Instead the developer makes the game, SOE publishes it, and together we divvy up the various responsibilities.

Here is the breakdown:

 Flying Lab Software
• Game Development
• Community
• Customer Support
• Server Operations

 Sony Online Entertainment
• Billing
• Launcher
• Retail Distribution
• Localization
• Marketing

Here’s why we decided to work together:

First, we weren’t going to work with anybody unless we kept control of the game development and the community. That eliminated a lot of potential partners right off the bat. Let me tell you a few things that are different about working with SOE than with the other MMO publishers we talked with:

1) We keep complete ownership of Pirates of the Burning Sea.
2) We have no interference from SOE on the development/ideas of the game.
3) Because we financed Pirates ourselves, we keep most of the revenues so we stay strong and independent.
4) The contract they gave us actually says what we agreed to verbally.

Pretty basic stuff, I know, but we talked to maybe a dozen other development houses and MMO publishers, and many of them had one or more of the following in their relationships and contracts:

1) Publisher takes ownership of the intellectual property.
2) All sorts of verbal promises that never appeared in the contract.
3) Publisher approval over the game’s design.

All of this is why negotiating with SOE was such a breath of fresh air. I kept tensing at various points, expecting them to pull off the mask of humanity and say “Puny humans, our superior alien contract will take control of your game!” But thankfully for both us and all life on Earth, that never happened.

Here’s exactly what SOE brings to this that we want:

1) Strong distribution: We want Pirates of the Burning Sea to be in every retail store that carries games. SOE has that down cold.
2) Great localization process: We really want a simultaneous launch in Europe and the US because we think it could do as well over there as over here. Working with SOE gives us the best chance of making that happen.
3) Enthusiasm: I really can’t stress this enough. You can write a contract to say anything you want about how much work each party will do, but that’s nothing compared to having your partners genuinely excited to work with you, from the marketing people to the programmers to the executives. And boy, are they excited. (You would be, too, if a great game fell into your lap!)
4) Clockwork process: We want to launch Pirates this fall. The game is in great shape and we’re going into large-scale beta testing this week. To hit a fall launch date, we needed a partner who knows the entire process inside and out, someone who can just start turning the crank and making it happen.

We had two other paths to launching this fall: going it alone and working with another independent outfit we’ve been spending time with. Both of these were good options in general (especially the partnership approach, as we really like those guys). But for either of those approaches to work for a fall launch, everything would have to go right the first time and we’d still need some luck. By working with SOE we know it’ll just happen.

So now you know why we made the decision. But let’s talk about why you should love it:

Platform Publishing is a channel for independent developers to compete on the same level as a big publisher – without selling their soul.
If you’re looking for the next WoW, you probably don’t care about Platform Publishing. The industry’s got you covered. But if you want something off the beaten track, something that’s more of a labor of love than an entry on a spreadsheet, then you want independent developers to thrive. And Platform Publishing is exactly how they can thrive without either being ghettoized into download-only (though this becomes more legitimate every day) or having to sell out to a publisher.

And that’s what I want. You know me, I believe in off-beat, different content. I’ve put my money where my mouth is. And I want more developers to do the same. A big part of our business plan was the uncertainty of where download distribution would be when we shipped, and if we wanted to go retail, how we’d do it on our own. Platform Publishing lets the developer avoid all of that business overhead and focus on making their game. Which would be a good thing because frankly, I see a number of companies that are struggling to do both at the same time and run the risk of doing neither well.

So, now you know the broad strokes of what’s going on. I’m sure that we’ll be answering a lot of questions over the next few days, but let me get a jump start on them now.

 What will it cost to play?
We aren’t ready to announce that yet but it’ll be typical of recent MMOs. Pirates will be a subscription-based game just as it’s always been.

 Will Pirates be on Station Access Pass?
Yes. For one price you can play EQ, EQ2, Pirates, and everything else SOE has to offer.

 Can I pre-order?
There will be pre-order boxes in stores this Summer.

 The changes SOE made to Star Wars: Galaxies have been really controversial. Aren’t you afraid that you’ll be next?
No. The design of the game is entirely in our control.

 Won’t Sony end up buying you out the way they did Vanguard?
The difficulties Sigil had with Vanguard have been pretty well publicized at this point. We’re in a very different situation financially and have no fear of shutting down. A lot of independent studios have just enough money to shove the game out the door and then go bankrupt if they don’t have their next project already financed. We are very, very fortunate to not be in that situation. We’re self-financed and beholden to no one. Flying Lab is in good shape. We made this decision because we wanted to, not because we had to.

 I hate SOE and I will never play your game.
That’s okay. I’m sure there will be people who play our game and then hate it anyway. We can’t make everyone happy but I can make you this promise: if Pirates isn’t good, if you don’t like how the game is designed, or how the servers are operated, or how we interact with our community, it’ll be our fault, not SOE’s. We own the game and the buck stops here.

 Will this affect your trade show schedule?
Yeah, it’s increasing! We’ll be at E3, at the SOE FanFaire, and at Leipzig, for example. And of course you’ll still see us at the Penny Arcade Expo and many other events.

 Will the Flying Lab forums continue, or will there be a new Sony Pirates forum?
We’ve gone to a lot of effort to build a thriving community here, and we have every intention of continuing it. We own community management, so our website forum will still be the place to go. You’ll need to create a free SOE account that links to our forums, because we’re using their servers for downloading the beta and other backend things, but Aether and the rest of us will still be here on the forums every day as usual.

Hey, what about that expanded beta you’ve talked about recently? Does this affect it?
Nope. We’ll be releasing our big new build to the beta in the next 24 hours and after a couple weeks of shakedown time, we’ll be inviting 10,000 new beta testers in to try it out!

What about open beta?
Stay tuned.

So there you have it folks. I know you will have additional questions, and we will be here to answer them directly. First, you can stop by this thread and share your thoughts, and second, you can attend our next IRC Devchat that we’ve scheduled for Tuesday, June 26th at 2:00p PST in #potbs-devchat on the irc.coldfront.net server.

Flying Lab Software has always had a commitment to open communication, and our new partnership with SOE does not change that.

Finally, thank you for your patience during this process. I know you guys will have a lot of questions, so we’ll be around tonight to answer them.

See you on the forums!

Discuss This Article

For those that have read my about page, I used to be involved in the MMO (massively multiplayer online) space. Since quitting and focusing on (what I see as) more lucrative markets (local and blogging), I’ve still kept a good relationship with pretty much all the large players - while I tired of it, keeping abreast of news is interesting.

So today, after tucking the missus to bed and getting on the computer to catch up on some email, I saw an interesting email in my inbox (from a trusted acquaintance). Wowhead, a popular World of Warcraft website, was purchased for over $1 million.

Some quick background (hold on, it can be a bit confusing):

Before WoW launched officially, a lot of EverQuest players were invited to beta test. One of them was Thott, leader of one of the largest EQ guilds (Afterlife). Being a resourceful programmer, and utilizing WoW’s LUA programing interface, he wrote Thottbot. The program basically stored information on all quests/items/creatures/characters/etc that the user came across, and then uploaded it into a centralized system (Thottbot). Users around the world could then load up information, find out how to do quests, where to go, etc. Distributed with the most popular WoW add-on (Cosmos), the site was an instant hit.

Before Thottbot, the pre-eminent database site for online games was Allakhazam. It had the largest subsites for the (then) most popular games - EverQuest, Final Fantasy XI, Dark Ages of Camelot, and Star Wars Galaxies. Allakhazam was a subscription site, making money from people willing to pay for features like advanced search (incidentally, all the content on Allakhazam was actually user-submitted).

I had the mental fortitude to snap up Thottbot (for IGE) right before WoW came out of beta. I can’t disclose the details, but it was in the $xxx,xxx range. For the amount of traffic the site got, it was an absolute steal.

With Thottbot on the scene, Allakhazam greatly suffered. Why would people pay for a subscription with everything for free on Thottbot?

Another quick aside: for those new to MMOs, companies like IGE sell virtual currency and goods for real-world dollars. For all the (unwarranted) hype of Second Life, IGE et all are far bigger - they push hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods every day. A lot of players don’t like them - they believe virtual good sellers corrupt the ‘pure’ nature of the game.

Allakhazam.com was operated by a guy who used the nickname ‘Allakhazam’. He was one of the fiercest anti-IGE players around. I had once offered him $1 million (before WoW even entered alpha) - he wasn’t interested. Anyway, the site took a hit, and after a few years of struggling to survive, he eventually broke down. He sold out to IGE for roughly $7-10 million. The justification was that he sold the site to ‘Affinity Media’, which owns (but isn’t) IGE. Anyone with half a brain knew that they were the one and same.

So - with Thottbot/Allakhazam owned by IGE, they pretty much owned the WoW fansite market (and thus a huge audience to push their wares to). At least, if it wasn’t for Wowhead. A late-comer, the site was an instant hit, with its clean UI and fast loading speed (think of Thottbot as Altavista, and Wowhead as Google). You can see on Alexa how Wowhead has grown while the others have stagnated.

And so ‘Affinity Media’ has struck again. Verified by three different sources, the price was confirmed at over $1,000,000. The lower limit was 1 million, while the upper was $1.5 million.

And people thought running a fansite wasn’t worth it 

UPDATE: Some people have asked for proof - I can’t give you that. But - I did confirm with another source. As far as I am concerned, this is solid. So Digg it.

UPDATE2: IGE has been ’supposedly’ sold off by Affinity Media. They used FUD when they purchased OGaming. They used FUD when they purchased Allakhazam. Just some more FUD - rest assured IGE/Affinity Media are still very connected.

UPDATE3: The FUD doesn’t end. Remember - I sold OGaming to IGE, while they claimed it was ‘RPG Holdings’ that purchased it. I’ve experienced it firsthand. I talked to another contact - it is a bit byzantine (how the site was ’sold’), but as it stands, IGE US LLC’s parent company is Affinity Media. Certain properties may have been sold, but not the company itself.

UPDATE4: The sale is confirmed:

News travels fast! We were hoping to have the time to put together a proper announcement about this, but it appears word is already out, so we wanted to acknowledge it: now that IGE is out of the picture, Wowhead has decided to become a part of the ZAM Network.

I leaked the sale before it was officially announced, so that shows I did have someone on the inside (my past with Thottbot etc just confirms it). All the same contacts are saying the same thing - Affinity is still very much involved with IGE.

UPDATE5: At the recent VRGood Summit, it seems Brock Pierce (CEO of IGE) talked about getting out of the game, with no mention of IGE having been sold from Affinity. Consider this sale supposedly happened over two weeks ago, seems a convenient thing to forgot. Not to mention walking around with an ‘Affinity’ badge.

UPDATE6: I’ve written about why Allakhazam, then Thottbot, and now Wowhead became the top dogs. More developer/design-focused.