"Over 90% Accept Voluntary Retirement"... More Than 400 Employees Leaving 'I Company' After Receiving Up to 30 Months' Salary

NC to Reduce 1,400 Headquarters Staff by Early Next Year

NCSoft, which has launched a high-intensity restructuring due to poor performance, has received voluntary retirement applications and approved more than 90% of them. It is known that about 500 employees applied for voluntary retirement, and at least 400 are expected to leave the company.

According to the industry on the 3rd, NCSoft approved more than 90% of the voluntary retirement applications. More than 400 employees have been confirmed to retire and are scheduled to officially leave the company within this month.

Previously, NCSoft accepted voluntary retirement applications for game development teams and non-development staff for two weeks from October 28 to the 8th of last month. By offering severance pay ranging from a minimum of 20 months to a maximum of 30 months of salary depending on the length of service, about 500 employees submitted their applications.

As a result of this restructuring, the workforce at NCSoft headquarters is expected to decrease by more than 1,000 employees. As of June this year, NCSoft had a total of 4,886 employees (excluding temporary workers). After the split in October, 360 employees moved to NCQA and NCIDS, and about 700 employees are expected to move to four recently confirmed subsidiaries: FirstSparkGames, BigFireGames, LudiousGames, and NCAI. Including the voluntary retirees, approximately 1,400 employees will leave overall, leaving about 3,400 employees at the headquarters.

This workforce reduction and spin-off measure aim to strengthen global competitiveness, overcome poor performance, and improve internal structural efficiency. NCSoft has continuously faced performance crisis concerns as the sales of the ‘Lineage’ series, which has served as a solid cash cow, have declined. Last year, consolidated sales and operating profit dropped sharply by 30.8% and 75.4% respectively compared to 2022, and especially in the third quarter of this year, the company recorded an operating loss of 14.3 billion KRW, marking its first quarterly deficit in 12 years.

The industry agrees that NCSoft’s organizational restructuring is a strategic decision to build a creative development environment and enable swift decision-making, but there are concerns about internal stability issues that may arise from the large-scale workforce reduction.

Regarding this, an NCSoft official said, "We are striving to minimize short-term risks during the company’s restructuring process," and added, "Next year, we will create meaningful achievements in game development across various genres and the commercialization of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, centered on the new subsidiaries."