New-look NCSoft West eyes rapid American and European growth

NCSoft is ‘accelerating’ its Western expansion with an aim of becoming one of the biggest games businesses in Europe and the US – just like it is in South Korea.

Speaking exclusively to MCV, NCSoft West’s SVP of publishing and business services John Burns said that the firm has finalised its internal restructure and is on a recruitment drive to bolster its presence in the PC and mobile markets.

We are one of the top three companies in Korea,” he said.

In the West we have a long history, but really what’s happening from now is the company is accelerating here. We’re looking to become one of the top companies in the West, much like we are in Korea. We have restructured, we built a new executive team, we’ve hired around 50 people in the last three months across a variety of initiatives. And we are doubling down on our existing product portfolio strategy. We’ll continue to be very focused on high-quality PC MMO titles, including WildStar and [new MMO IP] Blade and Soul. That’s an increase in our commitment to the PC space.”

He continues: But in addition to that,
we’re making a deeper investment into new product areas. We’ve opened a new mobile studio in San Mateo, we’re going to place about 100 people there for mobile development. We are going to increase
our overall commitment to mobile and essentially try to bring the kind of premium high-quality fun gaming experiences that our consumers have had on other platforms to the mobile space.

We are also going to look to partner, invest and bring other developers globally and launch their products in the Western market.”