Nexon America VP Min Kim talked about the company s success and why its free-to-play MMOs have resonated in the West in a speech given at GDC China. Christian Nutt covers Kim’s speech for Gamasutra. His piece shows there are lessons to learn on the free-to-play MMO market by understanding how Nexon played its hand in bringing products to the West.
Kim attributes some of his understanding of the U.S. market for MMO games to his upbringing as a Korean-American. He says Nexon recognized that the real potential in the West’s MMO market was targeting young teens, an audience he calls Pokemon kids who are growing up. One of the biggest steps was empowering their youthful audience with purchase decision-making. For that they had to untether them from their parent s credit cards. Nexon rolled out a massive pre-paid card campaign that at one time had Nexon Cash cards available at Target, Best Buy, 7-11 and other national retailers.
Both of Nexon’s hits can be attributed to targeting that maturing teen gaming audience. Kim sees Maple Story directly serving the tastes of the Pokemon set. For their other hit, Combat Arms, Nexon went after those weaned on console games and ready for a flashier, more arcade-like spin on MMO shooters such as Counterstrike. The game has more than three million players in North America. One recent miss offers a different lesson. Nexon recently consumer tested a casual cart racing game that got high marks for quality, but showed that the casual game MMO market isn’t well developed in the West.
Kim laments the treatment free-to-play games get from game press, saying they get caught up in what they perceive as a lower quality bar. Nexon sees that changing as future free MMOs catch up to console games. Yet overall his philosophy is that compelling and accessible content can overcome the quality barrier, citing how teens readily turn to low-fidelity entertainment on YouTube when most of them have an HDTV in the living room.
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