Nexon is officially launching the open beta version of its MapleStory Adventures game.
Nexon is an online-game company located in South Korea that specializes in making large, downloadable role-playing, action games online.
The release of MapleStory on Facebook is a way to see whether or not Nexon can make its way into social Facebook games and compete with the highly popular Zynga.
Nexon has been planning an invasion of Zynga’s turf for quite a while and hopes to succeed with this lighter version of MapleStory.
MapleStory is free to play, although users have the ability to use real money to purchase virtual goods. Zynga was the first to apply this model on Facebook, but Nexon created the first free-to-play online games ten years ago in Korea. Although Nexon’s success, it still needs to prove that it can grow on a global scale, as well as succeed in the West on a variety of platforms.
“We’re lucky to be in this industry at this moment, since we have years of experience and this is our core competency,” said Won II Sue, vice president at Nexon America. “The social and mobile side is a new challenge for us. We are starting later than the other guys, but we believe we can grow this organically by leveraging our intellectual properties.”
Nexon has also invested in the social gaming firm 6waves and Lolapps, two major social gaming firms.
For Nexon, the investment represents a chance to participate in Facebook’s fast-growing markets and learn from some of its leaders.
6waves is known for its third-party publishing of Facebook games and is located in Hong Kong, while Lolapps is located in San Francisco and has excelled at creating games such as Ravenwood Fair.
“We are thrilled to be teaming up with 6waves Lolapps in such a significant way,” said Seung-woo Choi, CEO of Nexon in Seoul. “By joining forces, we are combining 6waves Lolapps’ experience in publishing and developing social games with our extensive knowledge of free-to-play games and the microtransaction business model.”
More information regarding Nexon and MapleStory can be found by visiting Nexon’s website.
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