Aion ‘will be major MMO force’

NCsoft expects new title Aion can join Warcraft in dominating the MMO genre after its release this week.

Speaking to MCV, European publishing MD Vronique Lallier revealed the game has already attractred over 300,000 pre-orders in the West.

Aion is going to be a real success – it adds new content and ideas to the MMO genre,” she explained. It’s a competitive area now, but there is a lot of room for different players and new games in the space. I am confident Aion will be one of the biggest games on the market.”

Aion launches ahead of a rush of new MMO titles arriving in 2010, including APB and Star Wars: The Old Republic. All of them are hoping to take a chunk out of World of Warcraft’s userbase of over ten million players.

There are a lot of other MMOs in the works – but
I’m not sure how many of them are triple-A games,” said Lallier.

Plus we’ve been working hard to make sure players can find the games anywhere – be it at their favourite retailer or their favourite e-tailer.”

As with many online titles, NCsoft has worked heavily on community activity in the run up to the event in terms of forums plus attendance of events including a big showing at Gamescom.

Explained Lallier: On a daily basis there are lots of points of contact we have with our fans when it comes to building the excitement – we do a lot online, but we have done a lot in real life too with community player meets. We have been flying from country to country to
make sure we meet our players.”

Lallier said there is also an active post-launch strategy in place to add new content to the game to keep players entertained once the game is released:

We are always listening to player feedback to ensure we are giving them new challenges and keeping them playing.”