Largest Korean Investment Bank Predicts Grim Future for WildStar
Ever since WildStar went free to play in the West on September 29, 2015, hopes of a turnaround for the ailing franchise have remained high. Servers were slowly filling back up again and the game world felt "full" for the first time since release. This hasn't stopped Daewoo Securities, South Korea's largest Investment Bank, from issuing a dire prediction for Wildstar's future revenues. Chang-kwaen Kim and Jeong-yeob Park, who wrote the report were bullish on NCSoft's prospects predicting an 18% increase in the company's stock price, but were negative about Wildstar's prospects. They predict WildStar's revenues will fall to near $0 by Q4 2016 as seen here:
The analyst note was published on January 19th, 2016 and also reveals the remarkable strength of Lineage 1, which is expected to grow revenues by 3.4% in 2016. Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 remain the two strongest games in NCSoft's platform after Lineage, but both are expected to suffer double digit declines in revenue in 2016. If things don't turn around for WildStar in the coming year, NCSoft could end up shutting the game down. Given that the game just recently transitioned to free to play, it may be a bit early to write it off, but as-is the game has been a financial failure for NCSoft, bringing in only ~$50 million in revenue since launch (80% of which was in 2014 due initial buzz and retail sales).