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.
It doesn't help that, while the game is free-to-play, it also has two tiers of monthly subscriptions available. The cheapest offers basic functionalities like trading and auction house usage, which aren't available if you're playing for free. I should note that, in other MMOs, these sorts of limitations are a sign you're playing a trial, not a free-to-play game.
Either way, you are reading this article because this did not exactly go well. Korea JoonGang Daily reports that just 15 hours after the game's launch, the ill-fated MMO's developers had to stage an emergency broadcast to inform players they'd be making adjustments.
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.
