The publisher plans for Aion to eventually take second place in the MMO race behind World of Warcraft. The game is already recording strong preorder sales in advance of its North American release on September 22. NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee said it was likely that the poor performance of Tabula has made retailers "reluctant" to stock Aion. In facing a question of comparison between the two titles, Lee was quick to show his contempt for Richard Garriott's Tabula, which shut down earlier this year after only 16 months of operation.

As Gamasutra put it:

"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," Lee said above the nervous chuckle of the analyst. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance."