Aion

After the failures of games like Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault and Dungeon Runners to find an audience, NCsoft has to be happy with the early sales success of Aion in the US and Europe. This week the Korean-based publisher announced that the fantasy MMO sold 500,000 copies in the US after its launch and 470,000 more copies in Europe. In fact sales of NCsoft's games overseas exceeded its local sales for the first time in the company's history.

That caused NCsoft to record a profit of $39.8 million in its last fiscal quarter that ended on September 30. That's a nine-fold increase in profits compared to the same time period a year ago.

It's been a little while since we have seen any lists from the NPD Group on retail PC game sales. The organization decided to no longer release their weekly top 10 PC game sales lists to the media but today they did release their top 20 best selling PC games for the month of September in retail stores.

It's not a shock to learn that NCsoft's fantasy MMO Aion was the number one best selling PC game for the month as it was already selling well in pre-orders online. The Collectors Edition made it to number four for the month. EA's The Sims 3 continues to do well in the number two slot while Cryptic Studios' super hero MMO Champions Online made a strong debut at number 3. Blizzard's MMO expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King made it at number four.

One interesting note before we get to the list itself. Phantom EFX has two of their popular casino PC games in the top 20 list but their hardcore PC FPS Darkest of Days, released in September, failed to make the top 20.

1. Aion - NCsoft
2. The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
3. Champions Online - Cryptic Studios/Atari
4. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
5. Aion Collector's Edition - NCsoft
6. Mumbo Jumbo Assortment - Mumbo Jumbo
7. The Sims 3 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
8. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. Real Deal Slots Treasures of the Far East - Phantom EFX
10. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
11. Spore - Electronic Arts
12. Grand Theft Auto IV - Rockstar Games
13. StarCraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
14. Zuma's Revenge - Popcap Games
15. World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusade - Blizzard
16. Batman: Arkham Asylum - Rocksteady/Eidos
17. Real Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
18. Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Seas - Her Interactive
19. Civilization IV: The Compete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
20. The Sims 2 University Life Collection - Electronic Arts

Every time a new MMO comes out, it is often heralded as the "WoW killer." The one MMO that will manage to dethrone Blizzard's impossibly popular epic once and for all. This is a ridiculous expectation for any game to have, and thusly, MMOs need to be judge on their personal merits rather than in comparison to how popular they will be beside World of Warcraft. Aion is one of these games, and while it is rather generic, it manages to offer up a good mix of storytelling, graphics, and gameplay that make it a game to at least try out.

You can't escape the fact that NCsoft's MMO Aion is a popular title. Much like this week's list of Steam's top 10 best selling PC games list, the latest such list from IGN's Direct2Drive shows the game on top for the first two spots (Collector's at number 1 and Standard at number 2). The indie-made MMO Fallen Earth also continues to do well at number 3 on the list this week.

As one might expect, this week's list also has a number of games that Direct2Drive put on sale for just $5.

1. Aion Collector's Edition, - NCSoft
2. Aion Standard Edition - NCSoft
3. Fallen Earth - Fallen Earth, LLC
4. Neverwinter Nights 2 - Obsidian/Atari ($5 sale)
5. Assassin's Creed Director's Cut - Ubisoft ($5 sale)
6. Titan Quest Bundle - Iron Lore/THQ ($5 sale)
7. Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir - Obsidian/Atari ($5 sale)
8. Champions Online - Cryptic/Atari
9. BioShock - 2K Boston/2K Games ($5 sale)
10. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - BioWare/LucasArts

It's stayed at the top for the past several weeks and it show no signs of leaving. NCsoft's hit MMO Aion remains at the number one spot (for the Collector's Edtion) on Steam's weekly list of their top 10 best selling PC games. In at number two is the Standard Edition of the game. The number three spot is a new entry, the post-apocalypse MMO Fallen Earth which just recently became available on Steam.

The entire top 10 list is as follows:

• 1. Aion Collector's Edition - NCsoft
• 2. Aion Standard Edition - NCsoft
• 3. Fallen Earth - Fallen Earth LLC
• 4. Batman: Arkham Asylum - Rocksteady/Eidos
• 5. F.E.A.R. 2.: Project Origin - Monolith/Warner Bros. Interactive
  
• 6. Left 4 Dead - Valve
• 7. Resident Evil 5 - Capcom
• 8. Counter-Strike Source - Valve
• 9. Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection - LucasArts
• 10. Red Faction Guerrilla - Reactor Zero/Volition/THQ

NCsoft's launch of their fantasy MMO Aion this week in the US has been successful . . . or perhaps too successful, if you catch our drift. Since the game opened its servers for its pre-orders and then officially launched on Tuesday, there have continued to be long queue lines of players waiting hours to sign onto the game's servers.

NCsoft has been trying to cut down the wait times and now our sister site Massively reports that the developer has put a new time limit on the game's private stores. Players have been idling on the servers while supposedly opening a virtual store to sell their items. Now there's a 30 minute time limit for those stores to remain open. More importantly, NCsoft plans to launch a new North American server sometime this weekend. Both efforts should help a lot to reduce wait times to enter the game.

Aion, the MMO that gives you wings, is already a huge hit in S. Korea, a country where online games are a part of the culture's daily life. In the fourth (and last) video podcast, the developers at NCsoft travel to Seoul to get the fans' comments and reactions to the game. It also answers some burning fan submitted questions. Hopefully, the enthusiasm in Asia will carry over to the West, since the game is set to officially went live in North America today. The gorgeous launch trailer can be seen after the jump.

Download HD Aion Video Podcast #4 (769 MB)
Download HD Aion Launch Trailer (112 MB)
Check out all Aion downloads

With NCsoft's MMO Aion officially launching Tuesday in the US and on Friday in Europe, the development team is already looking ahead to what they will be doing next for their best selling fantasy MMO. VG247.com chatted with the game's brand manager Christian-Peter Heimbach who states, "There will be at least one major update a year" for Aion.

Of course NCsoft has provided free content updates for a number of their other games, particularly City of Heroes, in the past. Heimbach states that for Aion, "there will be free content updates for all players, and we're looking then at how big the major updates will be." If the game continues to be as successful in sales as its pre-orders you can most likely expect lots of content updates in the months and years to come.

While the game doesn't officially launch until tomorrow it looks like there have been a few pre-launch day issues for the US release of Aion. NCsoft's long awaited fantasy MMO opened up its servers for its Head Start program for everyone who pre-ordered the game (all 400,000 of them) on Sunday.

The Aion Tower web site reports that there have been long queue lines to join Aion's servers during the Head Start launch. The queue lines were several hours long at one point. There have also been reports of servers going down as well as long latency issues with the ones that are up. Aion's community manager made a post on another fan site, Aion Source, stating, "I'm going to disagree with anyone who is saying that we've had a 'bad launch'. It's been fantastic. So many players logging in at once, and our servers are going strong." The community manager did admit to long queue lines saying, "While it is ridiculous waiting for 8 hours in a queue, queues are a good thing." She added, "We don't want to see a scenario where we put too many servers online resulting in a barren wastelands of empty worlds once the initial rush settles down. We're dynamic in the way we manage our servers, and we want to be open about this."

There's not one but two retail MMOs being released this week along with not one but two WWII themed games. Who would have thought that?

Aion: NCsoft's fantasy MMO is already a huge hit in its native Korea and even before its US release the game has generated nearly 400,000 pre-orders. The game, which uses the first generation Cryengine for its graphics, is noted for its combat which can take place in the air as well as on the ground.

As NCsoft prepares to launch the North American version of Aion next week, the fantasy MMO is still getting some last-minute changes before its official release. This week the game's official web site posted up word of those changes for the folks who have pre-ordered the game and will get to play Aion early.

There's been a few interesting changes in that final patch including a level cap raise from 45 to 50 and biggest of all the removal of GameGuard, the anti-cheating software that was a part of the game's beta test. However there were a ton of issues from players who had problems with GameGuard during the test so NCsoft took it out so they could give players "the best possible Aion experience." While it's likely they will try to put the software back in at some point, it's clear that NCsoft wants nothing to come in the way of the game during launch week.

[Via Massively]

NCsoft's release in the US next week of their long awaited fantasy MMO Aion has been on top of the best selling PC games list for download sites like Steam and Direct2Drive for some time. Today, NCsoft announced that total pre-order sales for the game are nearing the 400,000 unit mark.

That's good news for the publisher since their last two big MMO launches in the US (Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault) sold so poorly that their operations were shut down. Aion will officially launch in the US on September 22 but people who pre-order the game will be able to pre-select their server beginning tomorrow and start playing the game on September 20.

Steam's download service has seen MMO games dominate the top spots in weekly sales but so has one of its main rivals Direct2Drive. The latest weekly list of the top 10 Direct2Drive PC games in terms of sales shows three different MMOs in the top three spots.

Cryptic's Champions Online is currently number one, followed by the pre-order of the Aion Collector's Edition from NCsoft. Finally the independently made MMO Fallen Earth is at the number three position this week. Like Aion it will be officially released on September 22. The entire top 10 PC game sales list for Direct2Drive is as follows for last week:

• 1 Champions Online - Cryptic Studios/Atari
• 2 Aion Collector's Edition - NCSoft
• 3 Fallen Earth - Fallen Earth, LLC
• 4 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - BioWare/LucasArts
• 5 Aion Standard Edition - NCSoft
• 6 Section 8 - TimeGate Studios/SouthPeak Interactive
• 7 Civilization 4: The Complete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
• 8 Civilization 4 - Firaxis/2K Games
• 9 Darkest of Days - Phantom EFX
• 10 The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts

The newest video podcast for Aion addresses the game's origins and phenomenal success in South Korea. However, hits in Asia don't always translate into major successes in the US. The developers discuss a few of the changes that are implemented to make the MMO, which has been live in S. Korea for almost a year, to make the game more appealing to a Western audience. We'll know for certain how well Aion's wings take flight when the game officially releases in the US on September 21st.

Download HD Aion Video Podcast #3 (597 MB)
Check out all Aion downloads

With just a few days to go before the launch of Aion in the US, NCsoft has started the open beta test for their long awaited CryEngine-based fantasy MMO. From now until September 13 you can freely download and play in the beta before the full game finally launches in the US on September 22.

There's apparently been some issues with the open beta test in terms of online lag being experienced by some players. A note on the game's official web site states, "We believe we have resolved the issue, but we will aggressively work to continue to improve and prevent similar issues." Other issues with the game's authentication servers, its internal security program GameGuard and other issues are also being addressed.