Business Model

0:47 The business model of Aion 2 is free to play with paid extras, and whether that makes it pay to win is disputed: NC says its shop's cosmetics are purely aesthetic and its consumables do not affect gear progression, while critics point out that Quna bought with money can be exchanged for Kina, the currency of gear and upgrades, so that spending buys progress faster (Controversies). Nobody pays to download or play the game, either in Korea and Taiwan, where it launched on Nov 19, 2025, or on the global version, which opened to Founder's Pack buyers on Sep 30, 2026 and launched free for everyone on Steam and NC's PURPLE launcher on Oct 5. NC earns instead from a monthly Membership, per-character Daeva Passes, a shop of cosmetics and consumables, and Quna, a premium currency that players can trade for the Kina everyone earns in play. Reviewing NC's global notice in July 2026, Anders points out that major updates such as new regions and new classes are free as well. The global release adds Founder's Packs, which sell five days of early access. Each part has its own page; the disputes the model has caused are on Controversies.

Quick facts

The launch model in Korea and Taiwan

NC set out the model at its Aion2NIGHT livestream of September 2025: Memberships and Passes for convenience, cosmetic Costumes, Weapon Skins, Pets and Wings, and the option to exchange in-game currency for premium currency (NC, Sep 12, 2025). A month earlier producer Namjoon Kim had said that the Trade system would let players exchange items with in-game currency instead of premium currency (NC, Aug 12, 2025). On its third-quarter earnings call in November 2025, according to MassivelyOP, NCSOFT told investors that Aion 2's monetization would be lighter and more user-friendly in order to widen the user base.

12:24 What players found at launch was more layered. Reviewing the Taiwanese client a few days after release, kets and his games counted two battle passes and two monthly subscriptions, the first of them needed even to list items on the player market, and called the game very pay to win. Society Of Gaming's footage from the same week shows the basic Wind Breeze membership at NT$430 and the premium membership at NT$645, or NT$980 for both, with the two passes at 1,000 and 1,500 Quna (Membership). Cash-shop bundles containing gear-enhancement items, which NCSOFT had said would not be sold, caused a backlash within hours; the developers apologized on a livestream, pulled the bundles and gave the items to every player (MassivelyOP, Nov 19, 2025).

7:48 Looking back in August 2026, CrusherXGaming described the Korean launch model as several optional subscriptions that stacked to roughly US$40 to US$50 a month for every benefit, premium currency that converted into gameplay gold, and a shop selling combat items that NC withdrew about 15 hours after launch. The monthly total is his estimate.

Changes in Korea and Taiwan since launch

2:15 NC has reworked the model several times. On Mar 25, 2026 it added Kina (Bound), which comes from quests, Duty rewards, NPC shops, Sealed Dungeons and Strongholds, while regular Kina still comes from player trading, monster hunting and Odyle Energy Cubes (NC, Mar 25, 2026). Anders explains the effect: bound Kina stays with the character that earned it, which made farming currency on alternate characters inefficient and was aimed at bot farms as well (Kina and Quna).

3:01 At the SUMMER FESTA showcase of Jun 14, 2026 NC announced that the Memberships would be merged into a single tier with a reduced price, alongside server-wide sharing of Special-grade costumes and pets (NC, Jun 17, 2026). By late July Society Of Gaming, playing in Taiwan, was telling viewers that there was now only one membership, the key to the market and to exchanging Quna for Kina. With Chapter 1 in July 2026 NC also began selling tokens in the shop for four optional support packages aimed at returning players, one of which lifts a character to around 300,000 combat power (NC, Jul 6, 2026; Chapter 1).

Where the money comes from

On NC's first-quarter 2026 earnings call, finance chief Hong Won-jun gave what he called a rough estimate of Aion 2's revenue: about 25% from Membership, about 25% from skins, and the remaining 50% from purchases of Quna, about 25 to 30% of which is used to buy various items. Co-CEO Park Byung-moo said the mix would not change significantly for the global launch, although the team was discussing how to adjust the ratios in response to Western feedback (Inven Global, May 12, 2026). NC had reported in January that more than one million characters bought a membership in the game's first 46 days; revenue figures and analysts' forecasts for the global version are on Reception and Revenue.

The global plan

NC published its global approach as a nine-part "Team Update" on the official notice board on Jul 8, 2026. As the fan site Aion2 Hub summarizes and quotes it:

• the game is free to play, and how players invest is up to them;
• Kina is earned in play, while Quna buys shop items, the premium track of the battle pass and, through the exchange, Kina;
• the Market and the Kina and Quna Exchange run entirely between players, and both need an active Membership, priced at US$15 a month;
• the shop sells cosmetics that NC calls purely aesthetic, and consumables such as potions and resurrection stones that it says do not affect gear progression and can also be earned;
• Daeva Passes are sold per character and hold a combination of cosmetics, items, upgrade materials and in-game currencies.

NC added that some areas might change as preparation for launch continued.

1:46 Anders, who has played the Korean version, read the notice the day after it appeared as confirmation that the global model would be close to Korea's: Kina earned in play, Quna bought with money or obtained by selling Kina chests to other players, and a subscription needed to reach the marketplace.

8:01 CrusherXGaming called the plan a serious rewrite of Korea's: one optional US$15 subscription in place of two, a shop split into cosmetics and consumables, a per-character Daeva Pass, and Founder's Packs at US$24.99, US$49.99 and US$99.99, which had gone on sale on Jul 22, 2026 (Hardcore Gamer, Jul 23, 2026). After players complained that the packs included no subscription, NC added a 30-day Membership to every tier on Aug 7, 2026, including packs already bought, and confirmed it on Steam on Aug 21.

10:06 Two points stayed open in his reading: whether the upgrade materials in a Daeva Pass premium track touch gear power, and whether players could trade face to face at all, since NC's breakdown did not mention it. NC's Steam post of Aug 21 later listed Personal Trading among the Membership perks, but after the Launch Scale Test NC disabled direct trades between players on Sep 19 as an anti-bot measure. His verdict on the Market gate was that the game is free to play but not free to participate.

The global shop

NC's Launch FAQ of Sep 30, 2026 sums up the model in two answers: "Aion 2 is free to play with an optional monthly membership", and it "offers optional paid cosmetic items, a Battle Pass and a membership to access player-driven economy & currency exchanges". For details it still links to the Team Update of July, unchanged since Jul 17 (Steam, Sep 30, 2026).

0:20 CrusherXGaming's breakdown of Sep 24 put the same model more bluntly: free players get the whole game, from leveling and the story to dungeons, raids and the faction war, and the catch is the economy, since the US$15 Membership unlocks the Market and the Kina and Quna Exchange, where real money can become Kina and Kina buys materials and gear.

The shop opened with Advanced Access on Sep 30. NC's product notices of that day price Quna at 400 for US$5.99, 1,000 for US$14.99, 2,000 for US$29.99 and 4,000 for US$59.99, based on the PURPLE store, with prices in other stores possibly differing; NC's help center adds that checkout is now in US dollars only and that NCoin cannot buy Quna. Alongside the currency NC sells:

• the Aion 2 Starter bundle at US$19.99, once per character: a facewear skin, four cube expansions, ten Hidden Cube keys, 50 Resurrection Spiritstones, 100 each of Life Brew, Life Crystal and Battle Enhance Scrolls, and 5,000 Superior Power Shards, all bound;
• the Special Quai Membership at US$14.99 for 30 days;
• the Season 1 Daeva Pass, whose premium track costs 1,500 Quna and runs to Dec 15, 2026, and a shorter pass, Planet's Call, at 1,000 Quna (Daeva Pass);
• consumables and conveniences from the Tsenka Merchants for Quna, such as a Resurrection Spiritstone for 100, a Hidden Cube key for 50 (three a day), inventory and storage expansions for 200 and a name change for 500;
• cosmetics until the maintenance of Oct 28: three outfit sets at US$29.99 and two at 2,200 Quna, class weapon skins at US$11.99, pets and wings at US$19.99, and helm and decor pieces and emotes at 300 Quna (Cash Shop and Cosmetics).

Purchases also earn A2 Mileage, 4,350 for a US$29.99 outfit set, which a separate Mileage shop exchanges for Lucky Auras, Resurrection Spiritstones, Battle Enhance Scrolls, Soul Codex and name and appearance change vouchers. In the in-game shop mein-mmo found the Membership at €12.75, the battle pass at 1,500 Quna, about €19, and some outfit sets at €25.49 or 2,200 Quna.

As for what comes next, NC told Wccftech in September that Korea has a new season about every three months "and the global version will be similar", timed by live player data. No second global season or first content update had been dated as of Sep 30, 2026, and that was still so on Oct 17: NC's producer's letter of Oct 10 promises content "in a steady cadence", "starting with Ludra's return and our first seasonal celebrations", without dates, and NC said it would name the date of the Ludra raid's return by Oct 16, a day that passed without one. It came on Oct 23: Ludra returns on Nov 4, 2026, with login rewards, Twitch Drops and Quna prizes for an outfit contest around it (NC).

The first week of the free service, from Oct 5, 2026, showed how NC uses the model in practice. It gave things away: a Customization Voucher to every player on launch day, the pre-registration and wishlist rewards to everyone who logs in before the maintenance of Dec 1, and compensation for outages paid partly in paid time, one day of Membership and one day of pet auto-loot to those who had them running on the 21 European servers hit by the cloud outage of Oct 8. The first weekly patch, on Oct 6 (PDT), opened a free shop that gives Founder's Pack cosmetics to every character of a buyer's account, and put a Kina price beside a Quna one: the Wind Breeze Merchants sell the Resurrection Spiritstone (Season 1) for 25,000 Kina, ten a week per server until Dec 15, while the Tsenka Merchants ask 100 Quna.

The first paid service added after launch costs nothing yet. Server transfers, open from the maintenance of Oct 13 (PDT) to that of Oct 27, are a shop item priced at 0 Quna with no charge per character, once per account; NC charges only 1,000 Quna for each character slot missing on the destination server, and the notice says the product "may be offered for sale again in the future" without a price. In Korea NC sold a transfer for Quna in August 2026 (Servers; Korea and Taiwan Launch).

NC also began to defend the economy the Membership gates. On Oct 4 it warned that buying Kina or Quna from unauthorized sellers breaks its Terms of Service, and on Oct 10 at 23:00 PDT it restricted 4,996 accounts for bots, gold farming, unauthorized programs and real-money trading (Market and Exchange).

How players weigh it

6:00 Players who have spent months on the Korean and Taiwanese servers mostly place the pay-to-win problem in the currency exchange rather than the subscription. After three months aselon_eu, who had cleared the available content without spending beyond the subscription needed for the marketplace, said the subscriptions and passes were not the main issue; the exchange was, because Quna buys Kina and almost every route to power runs on Kina.

5:17 SywoGG, a Taiwan-server player, put it more briefly in August 2026: paying lets a player overpower content rather than unlock it. Gear Progression and Enhancement and Soul Imprint describe the systems the Kina goes into.

11:26 CrusherXGaming priced the global version by type of player in September 2026: nothing for a casual player, US$15 a month for a trader, and for competitive PvP the Membership plus a premium pass for each character every pass cycle. In his summary players are buying speed rather than skipping the grind, and locking the Market behind a subscription is still a paywall.

On the first day of Advanced Access, mein-mmo's Karsten Scholz wrote that despite all the adjustments for the West the monetization still contains pay-to-win elements, that tying the Market and the currency exchange to the optional subscription grates, and that the high grind could push some players to spend real money.

Store listings and age ratings

Steam lists In-App Purchases for Aion 2, and the ratings shown with the global version carry purchase descriptors: ESRB's T rating notes In-Game Purchases, PEGI 16 lists In-game purchases and Paid random items, and USK 16 lists In-game purchases (Steam, retrieved Sep 15, 2026). NC's Daeva Pass notice of Sep 30 points to its NC Probability Information page for the drop rates of probability-based items.

Frequently asked questions

Is Aion 2 free to play? Yes. Aion 2's Korean and Taiwanese version has been free since Nov 19, 2025, and the global version on Steam and PURPLE has been free since Oct 5, 2026. The optional Founder's Packs added five days of Advanced Access, from Sep 30 to Oct 4.

How much is the Aion 2 Membership? The Aion 2 Membership costs US$14.99 for 30 days on the global version since Sep 30, 2026, adjusted from the US$15 of NC's July notice. Korea and Taiwan launched with two memberships, merged into one cheaper tier in June 2026.

How much does Quna cost? In Aion 2's global shop, based on the PURPLE store: 400 Quna for US$5.99, 1,000 for US$14.99, 2,000 for US$29.99 and 4,000 for US$59.99. Other stores may differ.

Is Aion 2 pay to win? Opinions differ. NC says shop items are cosmetic or consumable and do not affect gear progression, but creators who play in Korea and Taiwan point out that Quna bought with money can be traded for Kina, which buys crafted gear and upgrades. Several describe it as paying to progress faster rather than to unlock content, and mein-mmo's reviewer found pay-to-win elements in the global version on its first day.

What can you buy with Quna? In Aion 2, Quna buys shop items, the premium track of a Daeva Pass, levels of the pass at 50 Quna each and, from other players through the exchange, Kina.

Can you trade without paying? Not really. In Aion 2, buying on the Market and using the Kina and Quna Exchange require an active Membership, and direct trade between players has been disabled on the global version since Sep 19, 2026. Every Founder's Pack includes 30 days of Membership.

Will the global model change? For Aion 2's global version, NC said in July 2026 that some areas might change before launch, added Membership to the Founder's Packs after feedback and trimmed the Membership price to US$14.99. Its product notices say items may be sold again in the same or a similar form, and it expects a new season about every three months.

Do you need to pay to play Aion 2's endgame? No. Free players get leveling, the story, dungeons, raids and the faction war. What a free account lacks is the economy: buying on the Market and using the Kina and Quna Exchange need the US$14.99 Membership.

How much does a server transfer cost in Aion 2? Nothing in the first transfer period, Oct 14 to 28, 2026: NC prices it at 0 Quna, once per account, plus 1,000 Quna for each character slot missing on the destination. NC has announced no price for later transfers.

How long do the first Daeva Pass and the first shop skins last? The global Season 1 Daeva Pass runs to Dec 15, 2026, and the launch outfit sets, weapon skins, pets and wings are sold until the maintenance of Oct 28, 2026.

Can you get banned for buying Kina in Aion 2? Yes. NC's warning of Oct 4, 2026 says buying Kina or Quna from unauthorized parties can end in loss of access to the game, and on Oct 10, 2026 (PDT) it restricted 4,996 accounts, real-money trading among the stated reasons.

Sources

• "Ludra Awakens on November 4th", NC, Oct 23, 2026 (also on Steam)
• Aion 2 Showcases Core Combat Content and Signature Dungeon Gameplay, NC, Aug 12, 2025
• Aion 2 Launches in Korea and Taiwan on November 19: Pre-registration Now Available, NC, Sep 12, 2025
• Aion 2 Unveils Season 2 Roadmap for 2026, NC, Jan 7, 2026
• Aion 2 Introduces Major Class Overhaul and Unveils 'Chaotic Abyss', NC, Mar 25, 2026
• Aion 2 Hosts SUMMER FESTA and Reveals Membership Changes, NC, Jun 17, 2026
• Aion 2 Rolls Out 'Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow' Update, NC, Jul 6, 2026
• Team Update, NC, Jul 8, 2026, updated Jul 17, 2026
• Aion 2 Publishes Official Global Business Model & Monetization Plan, Aion2 Hub (fan site), updated Jul 22, 2026
• Founder's Pack Content Showcase and 30-Day Membership Added to Founder's Packs, NC on Steam, Jul 22 and Aug 21, 2026
• Aion 2 app details, Steam, retrieved Sep 15, 2026
• Aion 2 Q&A: NVIDIA DLSS 5 Confirmed in the Works; Console Launch Is Coming, but Cross-Play Likely Isn't, Wccftech, Sep 7, 2026
• "Launch Scale Test Comes to a Close: What's Next?", NC on Steam, Sep 19, 2026
• "Launch FAQ", NC on Steam, Sep 30, 2026
• 9/30 (Wed) Common Product Info, NC, Sep 30, 2026
• 9/30 (Wed) New Skin Items Info, NC, Sep 30, 2026
• 9/30 (Wed) New Product Info (Daeva Pass), NC, Sep 30, 2026
• 8/18 (Tues) New Product Info: Special Quai Membership (Updated 9/28), NC, Aug 19, 2026, revised Sep 28, 2026
• The currency is only shown in USD at checkout. Can I pay in other currencies?, NC Help, updated Sep 30, 2026
• Can I use NCoin to make purchases in Aion 2?, NC Help, updated Sep 30, 2026
• Aion 2 hat das Zeug zum besten MMORPG seit vielen Jahren, aber das liegt nur bedingt an Aion 2, mein-mmo, Sep 30, 2026
• Aion 2's chaotic and overmonetized Korean release causes NCsoft stock to dip and devs to apologize, MassivelyOP, Nov 19, 2025
• 'Aion 2 & Lineage Classic' Success Drives Record Quarterly PC Performance for NC, Inven Global, May 12, 2026
• Aion 2 Founder's Packs Revealed: Early Access, Skins, and Prices, Hardcore Gamer, Jul 23, 2026
• Aion 2 Subscription Prices and Benefits - BATTLE PASSES and Subs Review Taiwan, Society Of Gaming, Nov 23, 2025 (video)
• Aion 2 Full Review - SO Much Potential, But You Shouldn't Play It, kets and his games, Nov 24, 2025 (video)
• Aion 2: Better or Worse? State of the Game (3 Months Later), aselon_eu, Feb 19, 2026 (video)
• Is Aion 2 Global Pay 2 Win? NC's Official Business Model - Complete Overview, Anders, Jul 9, 2026 (video)
• Aion 2 Cash Shop: Every Quna & Kinah Price Shown, Society Of Gaming, Jul 29, 2026 (video)
• The Real P2W Truth From an Actual Aion 2 Player, SywoGG, Aug 6, 2026 (video)
• Aion 2 Before You Play: $15 Paywall, All Classes & Global Changes, CrusherXGaming, Aug 16, 2026 (video)
• Aion 2 F2P vs whale The Real Difference, CrusherXGaming, Sep 24, 2026 (video)
• "Aion 2 Producer's Letter: Welcome to Atreia!", NC, Oct 10, 2026
• "Patch Notes | Oct. 6 (PDT) / Oct. 7 (CEST)", NC on Steam, Oct 7, 2026
• "EU servers affected by cloud service outage" and "October 8 EU Service Outage Compensation", NC on Steam, Oct 8, 2026
• "Server Transfer Products Info" and "Server Transfer Q&A", NC on Steam, Oct 9, 2026
• "Warning About Purchasing Illicit Currency", NC on Steam, Oct 4, 2026
• "Account Restrictions", NC on Steam, Oct 11, 2026
• "Customization Voucher to all players", NC on Steam, Oct 5, 2026