Massively^™

As closely as we watch the MMO scene here at Massively, all too often we neglect to look at the bigger picture. In the shadow of AAA titles developed in the US, there is an entire nation of MMO-players that all to often get ignored by the gaming press of the west. South Korea probably has the most enthusiastic population of online gamers in the world. The way they do MMOs is, most likely, going to dictate the future of the genre on a worldwide basis. Concepts like RMT, microtransactions, and the tenacious need to pay only when the mood takes the player are already being reflected in popular games here in the states. Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield tackles this nation of gamers head-on, in an impassioned editorial meant to explain why we should all be paying closer attention to this fascinating country.

Sheffield notes that Korea is actually a country where non-MMO developers have to compete for staffing resources, so prevalent is the desire to work on Massive games in the country. This is a also a nation almost purely of PC players - many Koreans like to mix their work and play by earning some extra cash from RMT. As long as Koreans see gameplaying as something that can be a lucrative passtime, "for fun" console gaming will never take the place of more serious MMO titles. Check out the piece, to gain the perspective the veteran journalist displays here: "Aside from World of Warcraft, they've taken a genre we invented, and perfected it to the point where an online dance game like T3 Entertainment's Audition has tens of millions of subscribers worldwide."

Friday the 13th: An inauspicious day for the superstitious crowd, but a great day for attendees of the Social Gaming Summit, held in San Francisco. The day saw a schedule full of great panels, populated by some of the industry's finest movers and shakers, among them representatives from Gaia Online, Nexon, Three Rings, and Gamasutra, among others too numerous to list here.

A particular highlight of the conference for this blogger was the panel entitled "Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds", which provided a lively discussion on what it means to create a virtual social space, how to monetize free-to-play content, and what exactly is a casual MMO? Trying to divide attention between listening raptly and taking notes is difficult; here is the result, along with the panelists, after the jump.

In a recent interview at Ten Ton Hammer, Nexon America's Min Kim spoke out about some of the company's plans for upcoming games, including their online FPS entitled Combat Arms which will be entering closed beta next week. He also talks a bit about another upcoming MMO title being produced by their Vancouver studio, but details are still not available.

In addition, Min Kim speaks at great length about some of the existing titles they have have available in Korea, that they're hoping to port to the North American audience, including the wildly-popular Korean title KartRider. To garner interest with North American players, Min Kim realizes that the audiences are different, and social competition is where it's at. No other information was said about KartRider's introduction to North America, but he says more details will be available soon.

Update: Though we initially listed both Audition and KartRider as games Nexon was looking to bring to North America, Audition has been available to North American audiences for some time now, complete with a catalog of familiar songs!

Today Gamasutra has up a massive interview with Min Kim, public face for the Korean gaming powerhouse Nexon. Kim has spoken on numerous occasions at various industry events on overcoming challenges for free to play gaming. Those challenges have translated into huge opportunities, with games like MapleStory, Kart Rider, Mabinogi, and Audition earning Nexon big money. According to Kim, the microtransaction business model the company uses across its titles is responsible for that success. Many other MMO developers have attempted to emulate that success, but their entrenched position 'since the late 90s', has made that difficult.

Some of Kim's most interesting statements surround their interactions with brick-and-mortar retail outlets. "We didn't really take off until we got the cards into Target and Best Buy and 7-Eleven. Over 50 percent of our player base doesn't have access to plastic, between 13 and 17. They just couldn't pay, so we'd effectively lose more than half our business. So that payment side is, I think, one of the biggest battles that people will fight." He goes on to discuss the possibility of Nexon games on the Xbox 360, the role of games in South Korea, and the misconceptions Western developers have when entering the free-to-play marketplace.

Nexon, maker of Maple Story and other, weirder MMOs, has announced that their intriguing title Mabinogi will hit North America with an open beta on March 5th. However, this is for residents of North America only; gamers in Europe and Australia will be s.o.l. [note: adult language] until such time as Nexon feels they're ready to hit the rest of the world.

There's apparently more to Mabinogi than previously suspected -- more than just aging the character over weeks, time is a much more involved element to the game. The storyline itself will evolve over generations, and a character's diet also affects its appearance. I'm all crazygonuts excited to play this, so expect a First Impressions from me shortly after launch!

And make sure you check out the videos on their website -- they're short tutorials on how to get around and do things in the world, presented by a girl and her sheep. While a little broad in its humor, it's still cute and has some good tips in between the silliness.

Nexon, the operators behind online games MapleStory, Audition, and KartRider, are counting down to the English closed beta of their new 3D Online MMO adventure game, Mabinogi (named after the Welsh pre-Christian prose), developed by Nexon's devCat studio.

Featuring Cel-shaded, 3D, anime-styled graphics, the game service is currently available in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.

Worlds in Motion reports that you can now buy game cards for MapleStory and other Nexon games at your local 7-Eleven convenience store. The game cards -- which cost $10 or $25 -- can be used to purchase in-game items.

At first, this struck us as bizarre, but it actually makes some sense. A 7-Eleven representative is quoted in the Worlds in Motion article saying that the cards are perfect for the "tweens and teens" who enjoy MapleStory -- a demographic that also happens to frequent 7-Eleven. The representative calls it "the Slurpee-beverage crowd."

It's a strange world. Next thing you know we'll be buying EQ2 game-time cards at the gasoline pump!