Aion 2 launches, and everything catches fire
Aion 2 should have been a big win for NCSoft. It is the follow up to a well known MMO, it launched free to play in Korea and Taiwan on November 18, and it arrived with plenty of hype. Instead, it almost immediately turned into a case study in how to wreck player trust.
The core issue was simple. Before launch, NCSoft had said Aion 2 would avoid pay to win systems. That promise mattered a lot to MMO fans who are already tired of aggressive cash shops and pressure to spend money just to stay competitive.
Once players actually logged in though, they discovered that power boosting items were available for purchase with Quna, the game’s premium currency. In other words, if you were willing to swipe your card, you could gain an advantage in power. For a community that had been told the opposite, this felt like a straight up betrayal.
Things got worse when players realised that Aion 2 was free to play in name only. The game also launched with two tiers of monthly subscriptions. The cheapest one did not just add cosmetics or small bonuses. It actually unlocked what most MMO players would consider basic features such as trading and using the auction house. If you stayed on the pure free account, you were locked out of things that usually only trial accounts are missing in other games.
So the overall vibe at launch was not great. Players felt like the studio had promised a fair playing field and then quietly shipped something very different. That frustration boiled over at high speed.
Emergency apologies and a falling stock price
The backlash was so intense that NCSoft had to react almost immediately. Just 15 hours after launch, the team held an emergency livestream to address the situation. It was not a celebration stream. Screenshots shared online show a very somber mood from the developers.
During the broadcast, development producer Kim Nam joon admitted that the team had messed up. As translated, he said they had been complacent and unthoughtful, and promised that the controversial power items would be removed from the store in a temporary update later that day.
So In seop, who leads the business side for the game, also apologised and said he had no excuse to offer and that he was truly sorry. It was an unusually direct public walk back, the kind you only see when things are really going sideways.
At the same time, NCSoft’s stock price was taking a hit. The company reportedly saw shares drop by more than 15 percent in a single day. The wider tech market was already having a rough week, so not all of that can be pinned on one MMO. But it is hard to imagine that a very loud, very public player revolt over your big new game helped investor confidence.
On Reddit and other communities, players shared memes comparing the game director’s appearance before and after launch, painting a picture of a team that knew it had flown too close to the sun. What was supposed to be the next big MMO moment for NCSoft had turned into an example of how fast goodwill can evaporate.
Why players are this angry
The controversy is not just about one set of cash shop items or a couple of subscription tiers. It is about how the whole package feels to the people playing it.
Many early impressions describe Aion 2 as having the look and feel of a cheap mobile MMO, despite the big name behind it. Players have criticised the user interface as clunky and low effort, comparing it to low budget mobile titles rather than a polished, modern online world.
Some of the feedback has been brutally direct. One player on the MMORPG subreddit claimed that Aion 2 might actually be the worst MMO they had ever played, citing the UI and general feel of the game. Another said they might keep playing a bit more but still thought the game simply sucks.
Put all of this together and you get a perfect storm.
- A clear promise that the game would not be pay to win
- A launch day reality where power boosting items were sold for premium currency
- Free to play accounts that feel more like limited trials than full access
- A presentation that gives off low effort mobile game vibes
- A rapid and public stock price drop right as the backlash hits
None of these things alone would be good, but combined they send a powerful signal to players and investors alike. It tells people the company was more focused on squeezing money out of the game than building long term trust.
In the MMO genre, where players often commit years to a single title, that trust is everything. There will always be some kind of monetisation involved, whether that is optional cosmetics, expansions, or deluxe mounts. The problem is when players feel like they are being pushed into spending just to enjoy basic features or stay competitive.
Aion 2 shows what happens when that balance tips too far in the wrong direction. The team is now scrambling to roll back the most aggressive parts of the cash shop and repair the damage. Whether that will be enough to save the game in the long run is an open question.
For the rest of the MMO world, though, this launch is a loud warning. If you promise players a fair experience, you have to actually deliver it when the servers go live. Otherwise, all the monetisation tricks in the world will not save you from the one thing you cannot buy back once it is gone: your community’s trust.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/ncsoft-launches-mmo-with-terrible-monetisation-puts-out-emergency-broadcast-15-hours-later-promising-to-fix-it-while-its-wax-wings-melt-we-were-complacent-and-unthoughtful/
