The tower of eternal pre-orders

Sep 18, 2009 10:36 GMT  ·  By

Even before hitting the large, North American gaming market, NCsoft, the developer and publisher of Aion: Tower of Eternity, can relish in its success. Launched in Asia at the end of 2008, the game has already generated for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game company a 315- and, respectively, a 451-percent increase in profit, in the past two quarters.

With the upcoming release in the States, the South Koreans of NCsoft might just make enough money to hire an army and take over the North. Aion pre-orders have already hit the 400,000 landmark and sales are only bound to increase once the game hits the shelves and entices even more players. But, even without the extra push of the after-launch sales, the publisher can already claim the title for the "biggest MMO release of the year."

Even though it sounds great, this year, the title might not mean so much. If, last year, the competition was fierce, with the launch of MMOGs such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, 2009 has been shy in this area. All the developers could release this year was Icarus Games' Fallen Earth and Vogster's shooter CrimeCraft, alongside Cryptic Studios' Champions Online, which would be the more popular title of the bunch, setting Aion aside, of course.

NCsoft won't feel satisfied unless it has an overwhelming victory, so it tries to squeeze as many sales by the end of the year. The key to success seems to be in the pre-orders, so the publisher has lined up a series of treats for those that won't wait until the games launch, on September 22. Players that will choose to pre-order will have the possibility to preselect the server to play on.

Those that pre-order will also be rewarded with an edge on their enemies, in the form of an early, two-day start, as online gameplay will become available to them on September 20. The title can be pre-ordered at NCsoft's online store, but also through dedicated gaming heavens like GameStop and Best Buy.