Nexon's oldie but goodie MapleStory beats Diablo 4 in Korea

Gaming Giant Nexon Co.’s 20-year-old title MapleStory knocked down US Blizzard Entertainment’s global-hit Diablo 4 in South Korea, helping the Asian game publisher raise money to develop new titles.

MapleStory, a free-to-play, 2D, side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game, ranked No. 3 on a list of popular games played at South Korean internet game rooms, according to N Media Platform Co., Nexon Korea Corp.’s wholly-owned subsidiary that provides local internet cafes with operating solutions, on Monday. The MMORPG’s weekly market share more than doubled to 10.2% from the previous about 4%.

Diablo 4, the latest version of the action role-playing dungeon crawler game series launched this month in South Korea took fourth place with a market share of 7.9%.

League of Legends, a globally famous multiplayer online battle arena title of Riot Games, topped the list, accounting for 39.5% of the country’s game market of internet game rooms, followed by Nexon’s FIFA Online 4.

The lifespan of MapleStory unveiled in April 2003 was more than six times longer than other games, given the gaming industry served online games for 37.6 months on average as of last year, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency.

UPDATES, MARKETING

To ramp up MapleStory’s market share, Nexon made upgrades of game characters easy to allow new users to enjoy updated content with minimum preparation.

The South Korean-Japanese game publisher listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange accelerated the speed of character growth while reducing experiences required for character upgrades by up to 40% when it added content to the title this summer. The company raised levels by three in some event stages.

Nexon also presented gifts such as a mousepad to users, which logged in for certain times in internet game rooms.

The company actively implemented offline marketing strategies by connecting the title with various cultural channels. Earlier this month, it held an update event at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium at the Olympic Park in Seoul. K-pop artists such as Lee Mu-jin and Guckkasten sang songs in the game to celebrate MapleStory’s 20th anniversary.

Nexon live-streamed the events at 14 theaters of CJ CGV Co., the country’s top multiplex chain, while some 380,000 users watched the event online. During the show, Nexon unveiled plans to utilize MapleStory’s intellectual property for the webtoon, web novel and theme park businesses.

“The company is enjoying a virtuous cycle of repurchases of content utilizing Nexon IPs by users with purchasing power who played Nexon games when they were teenagers,” said an industry source.

OTHER OLDIES BUT GOODIES 

Its other old games remained popular. Sudden Attack, a first-person shooter online game released in 2005, ranked the No. 6 on the popular game list, while the global legendary Dungeon & Fighter reported the largest quarterly sales in China in the January-March period.

Nexon said its operating profit jumped 46% to 56.3 billion yen ($397.5 million) in the first quarter from a year earlier with sales up 36% to 124.1 billion yen.

Such healthy earnings are expected to help Nexon secure money for new game developments. The company plans to release six new titles in the second half.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com
 

Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.