NCSoft's Blade & Soul 2 launch wiped ₩3.9tn off its market cap in two days

NCSoft CEO Kim Taek-jin spent February 2021 teasing Blade & Soul 2 as the 'pinnacle of action' and a 'completely new experience'. The launch disappointed: users and analysts said it repeated the pay-to-win systems that made Lineage a 23-year cash cow — random loot boxes and a fading paid 'spiritual strength' boost — and some players felt deceived, with quality below the trailers Kim himself unveiled. The stock shed ₩178,000 to close at ₩659,000, market cap fell from ₩18.3 trillion to ₩14.4 trillion in two days, and NCSoft apologised for 'causing concern' the next day.

An emergency update on launch Friday softened the system, granting 100 per cent and 50 per cent boosts to growth and in-game earnings without paying for spiritual strength. The damage control was partial: analysts expected daily sales of ₩3 billion, making it Korea's top-grossing mobile game; post-launch projections fell to roughly ₩1 billion. eBest analyst Sung Jong-wha cut his target price from ₩1.09 million to ₩700,000, saying the excessive pay-to-win design had fatigued users.

The flop landed on a company already stumbling: Q2 2021 operating profit fell 46 per cent to ₩112.8 billion and net profit 40 per cent to ₩94.3 billion, with domestic revenue — mostly Lineage — down 16.7 per cent to ₩355.9 billion. NCSoft's response had been to introduce 'exclusive-level' items on August 11, forged by synthesising four myth-level items that typically cost ₩400–600 million each to make, which even hardcore users criticised. Industry officials began questioning whether NCSoft could still create the next Lineage at all.

₩3.9 trillion (US$3.36 billion) of market cap in two days, a 52-week-low share price, and a target-price cut from ₩1.09 million to ₩700,000.

The game monetised like Lineage while being marketed as a new experience, so the launch promise itself became the grievance.

The spiritual-strength mechanic put repeated cash purchases on the critical path to progression, which the trailers had never shown.

The launch was carrying the company's growth story at the exact moment Lineage revenue was eroding, leaving no goodwill buffer.

Players forgive a sequel for being familiar, not for being extractive: shipping the old monetisation under a new promise reads as deception, not continuity.

The emergency rebalance kept the game alive but confirmed the diagnosis: NCSoft's competitiveness as a creator of something genuinely new — the next Lineage — was now an open question among analysts and industry officials, with the stock at 52-week lows and the flagship sequel tracking at a third of its expected revenue.