NCsoft said Wednesday that it recorded an operating loss of 7.6 billion won ($6.73 million) in the second quarter, going into the red for the first time since 2006.

In a regulatory filing, the company said that its net loss also reached 7.3 billion won, while its sales figure totaled up to 146.8 billion won, down about 12 percent from the same period last year.

The firm’s quarterly sales went up 34 percent thanks to its steadily popular online game “Lineage” and its increase in royalties from overseas markets, which summed up to 17.1 billion won.

When looking into regional sales, it posted 103.2 billion in Korea, followed by 16.9 billion won in Japan, 5.8 billion won in North America, 3.1 billion won in Taiwan and 700 million won in Europe among others, said its officials.

Lineage brought in 58.4 billion won in total, while Aion and Lineage 2 recorded 36.4 billion won and 16.9 billion won, respectively. Other games such as “City of Heroes,” also known as “Villain,” posted 2.9 billion won, “Guild Wars” 1.3 billion won and other casual games 13.8 billion won, NCsoft officials said.

However, the local game firm had to pay a large one-off labor cost due to its restructuring efforts. NCsoft cut down its employee figure after its rival Nexon became the No. 1 stakeholder of the company earlier this year.

The firm’s marketing costs also rose with the launch of new online games in the first half of this year like “Blade and Soul” and “Guild Wars 2,” according to its company officials.

In the meantime, company officials said they expected the company to return to the black in the third quarter as its new blockbuster games “Blade and Soul” and “Guild Wars 2” are scheduled to roll out in North America and Europe on Aug. 28.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)