Nexon

NEXON Corporation () is a Korean gaming corporation and developer of online games and MMORPGs.  Its headquarters are in Seoul, South Korea.

History
NEXON Corp. published their first title, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, in 1996. It was significant because Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds was the world's first online graphic game to be published. It brought great success and fame to NEXON over the years. In 1998 NEXON released Dark Ages: Online Roleplaying which was loosely based on the Korean game Legend of Darkness, using the same server technology. The North American version of Dark Ages was developed by David Kennerly

NEXON Corp. has also released a few unsuccessful games to the North American audience in beta form which have since been dropped. They include Elemental Saga, QuizQuiz, KartRider and Elancia. QuizQuiz never left beta stage in North America but was later released through the Japanese division of NEXON, NEXON Japan, in a Japanese version. QuizQuiz has since evolved into the exclusively Korean and Japanese online game Q-Play, while Elemental Saga was eventually cancelled. NEXON has several games exclusively available to Korean players such as Elancia, and Crazy Arcade

In 2001, NEXON Inc. released Shattered Galaxy, published through TriSynergy. Though it had previously won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2001 Independent Games Festival, hosted through the Game Developers Conference, the game floundered when it was released to retail. It was subsequently maintained exclusively through KRU Interactive. Shattered Galaxy itself was a heavily localised and customised version of its Korean parent game, Tactical Commanders.

In 2003, Wizet created a hugely successful game called MapleStory, which eventually had clients in South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Southeast Asia, North America and Europe and many other places. NEXON then merged with Wizet and jointly control MapleStory.

It has produced several online video games, primarily MMORPGs and online action games.  Most games have used a 2D perspective, including side-scrolling, top-down, and isometric  perspectives.  Newer 3D titles are currently being published.  Although most games are available for free, various gameplay enhancements can be purchased.

NEXON is one of the pioneers of the Free to Play model using Virtual Asset Sales to generate revenue. Of a reported $230M in revenue for 2005, 85% was said to be from the sale of virtual items.

Partnerships
NEXON announced that they have made a partnership with Nintendo, though they will continue games for the computer as well. Together, they are currently working on MapleStory DS for Nintendo's handheld console, Nintendo DS.

On July 27, 2007, NEXON and Valve made a partnership and announced Counter-Strike Online, a new online version of the world's most popular first person shooting multiplayer game that will be tailored for Asia. Under the terms of the agreement between two studios, NEXON developed and became the exclusive publisher for Counter-Strike Online in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China.

NEXON Cash
Commonly referred to as 'NX Cash' or just 'NX', the NEXON Cash system was one of the first systems to use the Virtual Asset Sales(VAS) model. The NEXON Cash system was first introduced in the Korean version of MapleStory. The NEXON Cash system allows users to purchase NEXON cash with real money.  The NX cash can be used to obtain virtual game items that other users normally wouldn't have. You can buy cards with 5, 10, 25 or 50 dollar values. Players can use this virtual cash to buy items for their characters in games that support a "Cash Shop." The NEXON Cash system has appeared in other games to generate additional funds for their company and keep their games free to play.

On January 11, 2007, NEXON America announced the release of NEXON Prepaid Cards. The prepaid cards contain amounts of 10,000 ($10 USD) or 25,000 ($25 USD) NX currency that can be redeemed for NX Cash.  As of 15 October, 2008 the prepaid cards are available in North American 7-Eleven stores, Target(Nexon no longer sells these at Target), Duane Reade, CVS/pharmacy, Best Buy, Rite Aid, Longs Drugs, and Blockbuster stores in the US. In Canada, the cards are available at Future Shop, Best Buy, Shoppers Drug Mart, and 7-Eleven.

Recently MapleStory's Trade Shop was established, in which users can buy game items with real NEXON Cash. However, only NEXON Cash from the prepaid cards can be used in this. In the Trade Shop, players can request items for others to sell and even put up their own items for a certain amount of cash depending on the item's rarity and benefits.

Wizet
Wizet is a game development studio in Seoul, South Korea, and is popular for its hit game, MapleStory. Wizet developed a franchise system and expanded its services to Japan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan,  the USA, Europe, and Brazil. Eventually, Wizet reached the global world after having finished developing key features of MapleStory.

Wizet started as a small company with ideas to create yet another massively multiplayer online role-playing game which they achieved by creating MapleStory and with the financial resources from their parent company Nexon, Wizet was capable of developing and even selling merchandise of their popular game MapleStory.

References

Video game companies

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