GAMES 09: Interview with Sarah Rogers, NCSoft

At GAMES 09, we caught up with Sarah Rogers, Sales Director, Europe for NCsoft, the publishers of MMOs such as Guild Wars and the impressive Aion. We chat to her about MMOs and the Middle East gaming market.

MEGamers: Tell our readers a little bit about yourself and your role at NCSoft

Sarah Rogers: I’m the sales director for NCSoft – my role is to ensure our products get to the consumers, either by box or digital distribution. This is a very retail-focused area for us, and is a really good growth area for us.

Yesterday at the trade show someone mentioned that World Of Warcraft was going to be pushed to this region to increase subscribership – is this something you’re looking to do with your latest project, Aion?

The game is now present in all retail stores, and we’re really focusing on pushing it to this area. The sales and feedback so far have been great, and we’re really excited about that.

Your company has been at the forefront of MMO games, with successes such as Guild Wars and Lineage – what can players expect to see from Aion?

Aion is a really exciting and dynamic game, with some really dazzling presentation. It will be familiar to players who’ve played games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, but it’s also easy to adapt to for new players. It’s a Korean-developed game, and as you know Korean players are some of the most demanding in the world, so we’ve had to work hard to make a game that would meet much of the expectation. Casual players will be able to familiarize themselves with Aion quite easily because of the extensive tutorial campaigns.

What do you think has made MMOs so popular in recent years?

I guess people like playing together;  the interaction with playing within a guild or playing against each other, so that ‘real-world combat’ feeling has massive appeal. In Aion for example, we’re supporting in-game chat, so players can really feel connected as one team while they play.

At GAMES09 you’ve ready to really push Aion out to consumers – what are you expecting to hear from gamers as they try the game out?

I think it will be a mix of reactions – retails have told us that shoppers are coming into stores asking when the game will be arriving, so there is a fair bit of excitement surrounding it. Hopefully people who are attending GAMES09 who are unfamiliar with Aion will be a bit curious as to what it’s about, and give the game a try.

So spill the beans – what are you playing now?

I’m playing Aion – I really am! That’s my focus until some of the bigger console titles come out for Christmas.

What is your take on the Middle East gaming market?

I’ve been working with this market for the past three or four years and I’ve seen massive growth. PC gaming isn’t so big here, but console gaming certainly is – as broadband improves and becomes better, online gaming will certainly begin to kick off here. There is still tremendous growth to be had, and hopefully in the coming years we will see more and more developers taking an interest in the region.