When the Entertainment Software Association announced that the first set of exhibitors for E3 2009 was available, NCsoft was missing from the list. The MMO developer has decided to leave the ESA in 2008 and did not participate in last year's invite only E3 show.

Now Big Download has learned that NCsoft will also skip attending E3 this year. According to an official statement on the matter from an NCsoft spokesperson, "While NCsoft has been a member of the ESA in the past, we are not currently an ESA member and do not expect to attend E3 this year. We will continue to evaluate how E3 fits into NCsoft's plans each year."

NCsoft has been dealing with a number of financial issues that have caused the publisher to reorganize its Western operations, resulting in the lay offs of a number of team members and the upcoming shut down of their sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa. Indeed this week NCsoft confirmed that their UK operations will be cut drastically with even more layoffs as a result.

NCsoft still has a number of upcoming games on their slate, including the fantasy MMO Aion, the long awaited sequel Guild Wars 2 from their ArenaNet developer and an unnamed MMO project from their Carbine Studios division. They also continue to support their super hero MMO City of Heroes with new content updates.