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NCsoft has announced it will be closing North American servers for its MMORPG Lineage come June 29. According to a post on the Lineage website, the franchise is no longer profitable in the West.
“After much deliberation, NCsoft has made the difficult decision to shut down Lineage servers in its Western markets. Unfortunately, after more than 10 years, the original Lineage franchise is no longer financially viable in the West. On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage NA servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently.”
The post also states that new accounts will not be approved and registered users will be refunded any money they used to purchase time in-game.
However NCsoft state they have plans to give faithful fans the chance to try their other titles for free.
“As painful as it was, as a business, we had to make a very difficult, but necessary, decision. We thank you for your continued support. We want you to know that we will be offering you a chance to try other NCsoft games for free to express our gratitude for your years of loyalty to Lineage.”
Lineage still maintains popularity in Korea, Japan, and China.
What a shame, but not particularly surprising. The game was never built for a Western player’s palate and focused largely on mindless grinding, so it likely had a tough time finding its way into the hearts of North Americans.
