NCsoft denies abandoning online games sector

NCsoft has denied reports that the company is abandoning the MMO market in favour of creating social networking applications.

The company said that following recent acquisitions — such as the City of Heroes IP from Cryptic Studios — it intends to continue in the core business of massively multiplayer online games.

"For over ten years, the core business of NCsoft has been online games. NCsoft has no intention of moving focus away from online gaming," said NCsoft in a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz.

A report yesterday by the Korea Times — since changed — claimed that following declining sales, NCsoft was now targeting the growing social networking sector as a means to improve company performance.

But NCsoft states that it is simply adopting new technology as it seeks better ways of communicating with its consumers and improve the overall gaming business.

"As an online company NCsoft is constantly looking at new and innovative ways to interact with its audience and to bring its core content to players all over the world.

"There are many new developments right now that are shaping how our players interact and in general how people are using the internet. We intend to move with the times and offer communication channels that are relevant to our audience."

The publisher has recently released social networking services in Korea, but has no current plans to bring the services to Europe at this time.

"A few technologies are being rolled out in the Korean market we have not yet made any concrete plans to bring social networking applications to Europe, but we will evolve with the rest of the web and the demands of our consumers," said the company.