Nexon’s third-quarter financials have been made available to the press, and revenue is up. They accrued 60.4 billion yen during Q3, 2017, which is a 36% YOY increase from the same period last year. A lot of that is due to the increase in consumer spending on games like MapleStory and FIFA Online 3, along with Titanfall Online.
Due to the huge success of providing Asians with EA’s properties, Nexon has extended their publishing deal with Electronic Arts so that they can produce FIFA Online 4 to South Korea.
According to Owen Mahoney, the CEO of Nexon, he mentioned in the financial report…
“Long-running successes like Maple Story and Dungeon Fighter, along with sustained engagement on FIFA Online 3 and FIFA Online 3 M, validate our model of making games that last for years and decades.”
They may be true in the sense of the franchises under the company’s belt that prove to be profitable, but Sudden Attack 2 was jettisoned from their profile after two months of operation, as reported by Jason Cho from Gangnam Gamers.
Additionally, the company also announced earlier this year that they would be shutting down Ghost in the Shell: First Assault in December after it under-performed.
Nevertheless, Nexon’s focus on the games that do bring them in the cash is where they plan to aim their sights from now on. According to Mahoney that means extending the partnerships with Electronic Arts and focusing on games like FIFA Online 4 and launching MapleStory 2 in China, mentioning in the financial report…
“Looking forward, we’re pleased to work with EA on FIFA Online 4 the sequel to FIFA Online 3 which has continued its growth and success since it launched in 2013”
“[…] We are also very excited as we look ahead to our robust pipeline for the fourth quarter, which will see the full launch of MapleStory 2 in China, where we already have strong early indicators, as well as launches of Overhit and others. [sic]”
Nexon doesn’t have the best of reputations among the gaming community, and are sometimes considered the EA of the free-to-play model, but they’ve been ticking for a long time and it doesn’t look like they’ll be stopping any time soon. Also, the report makes no mention of sales failures like Lawbreakers. It will be interesting to see what Nexon does with that game moving forward.
