South Korean game giant NCSoft said Tuesday that it posted a record high operating profit of 328.8 billion won ($287.8 million) in 2016 mainly generated by its flagship game “Lineage” and its intellectual property rights.

The company raised 983.6 billion won in revenue last year, up 17 percent on-year and falling slightly from the 1 trillion won revenue milestone.

Net profit came in at 271.4 billion won in 2016, up 63 percent from the previous year, according to NCSoft.


NCSoft said that its growth was spearheaded mainly by revenues generated by its flagship game IPs in both the domestic and global markets.

In Korea, the company raised 613.9 billion won in revenue, up 15 percent on-year, led by the success of online PC game “Lineage” and mobile game “Lineage Red Knights.”

North America and Europe raised a combined revenue of 155.2 billion won, up 25 percent on-year, boosted by the popularity of “Blade & Soul” in the two regions.

Japan created 49.4 billion won in revenue and Taiwan 42.9 billion won, according to NCSoft.

Moreover, the Korean game maker received 122.1 billion won in royalty payments last year -- led by the success of games made by other companies with the use NCSoft’s game IPs.

By game title, “Lineage” generated 375.5 billion won in revenue, “Lineage 2” 77.1 billion won, “Aion” 71.7 billion won, “Blade & Soul” 182.3 billion won and “Guild Wars 2” 76.6 billion won.

Other mobile games and mass-targeting casual games raised a combined revenue of 78.2 billion won, the company said. 

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)