In a recent conference call, NCSoft CFO Jaeho Lee said he expects the US and EU launch of Aion to be widely successful. Is it all hype, or a real possibility?

With just a little more than one month to go until Aion officially launches, publisher NCSoft has proclaimed its confidence in the MMO with a surprising prediction regarding its future success. Originally a Korean MMORPG, released in 2008, Aion has followed the industry's lead and "ported" localized versions of the game to other markets.

As most of you already know (provided you haven't been living in a cave for the past six months), the North American and European versions of Aion have been in beta phases all summer, and are scheduled for official releases in late September. Relative to other upcoming MMOs, Aion has received quite a bit of publicity. It's also one of the most popularly-anticipated games within the fan community.

A few days ago, Gamasutra reported a statement made by NCSoft CFO Jaeho Lee, during a conference call between the company and industry financial analysts. Lee said that he expects Aion to lead the MMO pack here in the U.S., falling second only to World of Warcraft. Even by PR-speak standards, it's a bold statement—especially considering the doomed fate of the company's recent MMO, Tabula Rasa. Six months from now, could Aion really take second place in the U.S. market?

According to the Gamasutra report, Lee was quoted as saying:

"I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. [...] We are guessing that Aion will be—could be—the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft."

It's important to read the statement exactly as it was said; the news has been making its way around the media and blogging community rapidly, sometimes being mistakenly interpreted. He's not saying that Aion will wind up dethroning WoW, or that it will even scoop up half of WoW's subscriber base. He's predicting that Aion "will be—could be" the second best-selling MMO in the U.S.

But could it really? In a way, it appears that NCSoft is putting its money where its mouth is, raising its annual revenue estimate by 17 percent this year. It also raised its operating profit forecast by 80 percent, based on Aion's success in Japan and Taiwan (in late 2008 and early 2009), according to Edge. Since its launch in Korea, Aion has performed relatively well in every market it's been released in. Take a look at these numbers, from IndustryGamers.com:

Today the Korean MMO publisher announced its second-quarter and first-half earnings, noting that net income was up a whopping 451% in Q2, totaling 33.75 billion Korean won (US$27.3 million). Sales were up 70% to 137.77 billion Korean won. Operating profit was also way up, climbing 353% to 47.5 billion won

Aion, which launched last November in Korea and this July in Japan and Taiwan, brought in 40.6 billion Korean won. Lineage II wasn't far behind, generating 37.36 billion Korean won, followed by the first Lineage at 27.48 billion Korean won. City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars and others made up the remaining sales.

All that's left now is the EU and US; but, as any discriminating MMO fan knows, there can be a large divide between the types of games that are successful between the East and West. Granted, we've seen that NCSoft has gone to great lengths to localize the North American version of Aion; more so than many MMOs that wind up getting a rush-job port before being let loose on American audiences.

Still, there's past history to consider, a subject that was amusingly addressed in the original Gamasutra report:

Lee's excitement for the launch of Aion was dampened when an analyst asked how many boxes of Aion were shipping to retail as compared to NCsoft's MMORPG Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, a game that cost tens of millions and many years to make, only to shut down after a little over one year.
"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," Lee said above the nervous chuckle of the analyst. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance."
Lee also hopes, for the sake of Aion's success, that retailers in the West will forget about NCsoft's connection with Tabula Rasa. "We did a very poor job with Tabula Rasa, and we disappointed our retailers in US markets and also European markets. Because of that, our retailers may be very reluctant to take orders for Aion."

To be fair, it was a different development team that launched and produced Tabula Rasa. Aion isn't a brand-new game that's never been tested in any other market; it has a proven track record throughout Asia. As illustrated by its 2009 revenue projections and operating revenue increase, NCSoft is extrapolating Aion's popularity and success in the East from established earnings and subscriber numbers.

But, as you might have also read this week, the company lost two valuable members of NCSoft West, its North American division. Jeff Strain and David Reid both left the company on August 11, as MMORPG.com reported earlier this week. Strain previously held the title of lead programmer for World of Warcraft and worked on most of Blizzard's other IPs. He later joined up with NCSoft as President of Product Development and was instrumental in ArenaNet's formation and Guild Wars' development. Reid served as Vice President of Marketing for NCSoft and also helped form NCSoft West in its early days.

The press releases provided by NCSoft didn't go into detail about what prompted the two to leave the company, although it did say that their departure won't impact Aion's launch. No information was given about the continued development of Guild Wars 2, however.

The fact that NCSoft's North American headquarters lost one of its best programmers and ad men a month before one of its largest U.S. releases of all time can't be that great for the company, though. As we've seen with games like Warhammer Online, those first few months after launch can be utterly crucial to an MMO's success or failure.

The last thing many gaming writers want to do is make a prediction about a game's success before it's officially launched; myself included. But I have been strikingly intrigued by Aion ever since I heard the news that it was being released here in the states. From all the Aion news and media I've absorbed so far, I get the impression that the game was constructed using the most well-received facets of MMOs as a foundation. There seems to be a bit of innovation tucked in there as well; but for the most part, I see it as being successful by catering to established appeal more than any other factor.