Following the surprise announcement by Richard Garriott that he's decided to leave NCsoft, the MMO publisher today issued its third-quarter fiscal results, which showed a 50 percent decline in net income from 10.1 billion won to 5 billion won ($3.69 million).

Sales also fell two percent to 78.2 billion won and operating profit dropped 53 percent to 4.6 billion won. NCsoft said there was a drop in online players thanks to the typical summer season and due to the fact that this summer the Beijing Olympics gained some attention, leading to less online gaming.

The company's third quarter was driven largely by Lineage and Lineage II, which generated 26.6 billion won and 34.9 billion won, respectively. City of Heroes/Villains led to sales of 6.2 billion won, Guild Wars 3.7 billion won and Tabula Rasa 1.76 billion won.

NCsoft management indicated that it's hopeful that the company will rebound in the fourth quarter with the launch of Aion.