NCSoft launches MMO with terrible monetisation—puts out emergency broadcast 15 hours later, promising to fix it while its wax wings melt: 'We were complacent and unthoughtful'

A character from Aion 2 looks serenely at the screen. — (Image credit: NCSoft)

I've seen some monetisation-related disasters in my time, but I think this one might be up there with the worst—NCSoft's Aion 2, which launched in Korea and Taiwan November 18, has caused no end of problems for the company immediately after launch. Including, potentially, causing its stock price to tank a whopping 15%.

As for why? Well, it has something to do with promising your game wouldn't be pay-to-win, and then basically making it pay-to-win anyway. Players not entirely up-to-date on the developer's latest plans logged in to find that power-granting items were available to be purchased through Quna, Aion 2's in-game currency.

As translated by the site, development producer Kim Nam-joon stated: "We were complacent and unthoughtful, and we will be pulling the items from the store after today’s temporary update." Meanwhile, head of the game's business division So In-seop (translated here by The Chosun Daily) apologised: "I have no excuse to offer you, but I am truly sorry."

Screenshots of said livestream capture a somber atmosphere, to say the least—with before/after comparisons of dev live streams hitting the MMO's subreddit.

Director before and after the game launch from r/Aion2Hub

This coincided with a tanking of NCSoft's stock—which declined by over 15% in a single day. This might only be tangentially related, mind. The tech market's been having a rough week in multiple countries, but I can only assume that 'your big MMO launched and everyone hated it' isn't going to help.

Neither is the fact that player sentiment about the game itself isn't great—giving off cheap mobile MMO vibes: "On my family's lives, Aion 2 might actually be the worst MMO I've ever played," writes one player on the r/MMORPG subreddit. "the UI [is] something straight out of a cheap mobile game … I might play some more, but I think the game sucks," writes another.

Honestly, this feels less 'honest mistake' and more 'flying too close to the sun'—the wax wings have melted, and now NCSoft is scrambling to pull up. And while you're always gonna have to grease the MMO wheels with something, it's nice to see this kind of avarice backfiring for once.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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