ceo posts

Nexon America's financials continue to impress in Q3

by William Dobson Oct 16th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: MapleStory, Business models, Economy, MMO industry, News items, Mabinogi, Dungeon Fighter Online

We reported back in August that Nexon America had begun the third Quarter of 2009 with a very solid July; their revenue for the month grew 35% over the numbers for July 2008. Now that Q3 is over, they are happily touting some additional (and still impressive) figures. August 2009 beat out last year's August revenues by 32%, and September hit a lofty 44% growth in revenues compared to the same time in 2008. Overall, Nexon America's third quarter revenue grew 36% compared to Q3 2008.

Nexon America's CEO David Kim pointed out that this success comes without the bump that releasing a new game often brings: "Increasing our revenues without having added any new games to the company's portfolio for more than a year tells me that we are on the right track. Dungeon Fighter Online is just ramping up, so no revenues generated by that game are reflected in the outstanding third quarter we've had.

Dungeon Fighter Online is still in open beta, but an item mall has just been launched for the game. We can only imagine that Nexon's growth will continue when these revenues begin to show up on future financial reports.

Tags: ceo, david-kim, dungeon-fighter-online, earnings, financials, item-mall, maplestory, nexon, nexon-america, q3, revenues, third-quarter

Activision Blizzard's CEO is a funpire

by Kyle Horner Sep 17th 2009 at 9:30AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, MMO industry, News items

Bobby Kotick isn't just the CEO of Activision Blizzard. He's also the CEO of Activision Blizzard who recently said, "You have studio heads who five years ago didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO's office pretty regularly," Then again, as Ars Technica has pointed out, his incentive program that, "rewards profit and nothing else." may have something to do with that.

That's not all Bobby Kotick recently said, however. He's also known for this uplifting little diddy, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." Now that quote may be out of context, but what kind of context can make that look... well, good or even mildly acceptable?

Something smacks of bad omens here. Sure, things are going good right now for the company that puts out Blizzard games and Call of Duty, but when a company's Chief Executive Officer is saying things like, "We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression," it may be time to double-check your neck for bite marks and then get the hell out of Irvine.

Tags: activision-blizzard, ars-technica, blizzard, bobby-kotick, call-of-duty, ceo, funpire, funsucker, world-of-warcraft, wow

Funcom to open Montréal studio

by James Egan Sep 1st 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Age of Conan, MMO industry, News items, The Secret World

Word got out earlier today that Funcom is establishing a new game development studio in Montréal. If your French is up to snuff, you can read all about it on Les Affaires, but Funcom was quick to make an announcement of their expansion plans. According to their official release, the new studio is being established in cooperation with Investissement Québec, with Ole Schreiner as CEO of the Montréal studio.

Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas made a statement on Funcom's reasons for establishing a Québec studio: "We are excited about the opportunity that Montréal represents to our company, not only because of the great incentives offered by Québec, but also the authorities' strong commitment to training qualified video games personnel and building a video games cluster in Montréal and Québec."

Tags: age-of-conan, ceo, funcom, mmo-industry, montreal, ole-schreiner, quebec, the-secret-world, trond-aas, trond-arne-aas

38 Studios plays CEO hot potato

by Kyle Horner Aug 21st 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items

Brett Close has left the building, folks. The former 38 Studios CEO has recently resigned, being replaced by Jennifer MacLean, who until now had been senior vice president of business development. "I've had the privilege of building 38 Studios to become an established force of IP creation and entertainment," said Mr. Close, "I leave with confidence in the future success of the company and have no doubt its products will excite gamers worldwide." Of course, he's talking about Copernicus, which we're still in the dark on since the developer hasn't been keen to reveal it to the public.

Most noted for its founder and former MLB right-handed pitcher Curt Schilling, 38 Studios has been somewhat quiet for a while now. We're hopeful that their upcoming title encounters smooth sailing, but this industry certainly has its ways of tossing out a typhoon or two. If you're looking for some official word on the matter, then look no further,

Tags: 38-studios, breaking, brett-close, ceo, curt-schilling, jennifer-maclean, mlb

Matt Mihaly talks microtransactions and Earth Eternal

by Seraphina Brennan Aug 7th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Culture, Interviews, MMO industry, New titles, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Earth Eternal

It looks like we're not the only ones on the block to talk to Matt Mihaly, as Gamasutra has recently sat down with the Sparkplay Media CEO. The topic of the conversation: microtransactions.

Matt's no stranger to microtransactions, having utilized them back with Iron Realms Entertainment and their many MUD games. His talk with Gamasutra starts out focusing on how microtransactions can generate a very modest income, but mainly center on a small segment of the game's population paying the most to play the game.

Beyond microtransactions, Matt gives a few very interesting details about the development of Earth Eternal and how it reached the form it's in today. Did you know that originally Earth Eternal was going to be a hyper-violent and hyper-sexualized fantasy MMO before it evolved into the playful multi-race animal/fable theme? No? Then you might want to check out the full article, as there's more where that came from regarding the game's evolution.

Tags: ceo, earth-eternal, fable, fantasy-mmo, gamasutra, income, matt-mihaly, microtransactions, profit, sparkplay-media

Emergent behavior to be produced in Trion's Heroes of Telara

by Seraphina Brennan Jul 7th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, Interviews, Massively meta, Heroes of Telara

Trion World Network is trying a very different approach with their fantasy based MMO, Heroes of Telara, by pushing into an area currently untouched by most MMOs -- emergence.

Emergence is one of the aspects that many MMOs aspired to, only to drop in favor of static storytelling. The problem with emergence is that simple decisions would have a compounding impact on the world. Heroes would solve problems, only to perhaps create further problems with their implemented solutions. Most game architecture can't handle decision making of that nature, as it would need developers to constantly code in the new events that would occur.

However, Heroes of Telara seems to be aspiring to that using server-side gaming. Their proposed method, as it appears in an interview between Trion's CEO, Lars Buttler, and GamesIndustry.biz, is to run the game entirely server side, letting developers change and alter the game on the fly. As Buttler puts it, "There are small events, there are big events, there is even emergent behaviour in the game that changes the game world. A lot of it is not even known to us, it's like the ghost in the machine. The game is almost alive, and that allows you to create heroes."

Tags: ceo, decisions, emergence, hero, heroes-of-telara, lars-buttler, live-events, storytelling, telara, trion-world-network

Massively speaks with Sparkplay Media's CEO on Earth Eternal

by Seraphina Brennan Jun 30th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, New titles, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Earth Eternal, Massively Interviews

With Sparkplay Media's first game, Earth Eternal, going into beta, we got the chance to sit down with the CEO of the company, Matt Mihaly, and pick his mind on a variety of things related to setting up shop in the free to play genre.

Matt's no stranger to the massively multiplayer space, holding a strong background as the CEO and founder of Iron Realms Entertainment, a company dedicated to creating multi-user dungeons (MUDs) including Imperian, Aetola, Achaea, and Lusternia. If that wasn't enough, Achaea was one of the first games to introduce the sales of virtual goods, making him one of the pioneers of the base that free-to-play games now stand on.

So what's his thought process behind Earth Eternal? What are some of the things we can expect from the MMO that's sporting over 22 races? Hit the continue reading link, and find out!

Tags: ceo, earth-eternal, ee, featured, free-realms, free-to-play, fusion-fall, habbo-hotel, interview, iron-realms-entertainment, joystiqfeatures, massively-interviews, matt-mihaly, muds, runescape, sparkplay-media

Jaeho Lee moving to Seattle, not running NC West from Korea

by William Dobson May 19th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: MMO industry, News items

When the news came out last week that Jaeho Lee, former chief financial officer for NCsoft, would be taking over as CEO of NCsoft West, a lot of people (including press) assumed that he would be calling the shots from Korea -- after all, NCsoft had said that the change was about "global management" and working together across business units. However, we are now being told that Lee will make the journey to Seattle to join the NCsoft West team. In response to the earlier reports of NCsoft shifting leadership of its Western division to Korea, a rep had this to say to Gamasutra:

"Jaeho Lee is moving to Seattle, so nothing has shifted except him. A similar change of personnel happened in our Japan office, so this was a strategic move on the part of our headquarters in Seoul to streamline global management."

The rep also mentioned that Lee ran other departments such as marketing and production while in his position as chief financial officer.

Tags: ceo, chief-financial-office, global-management, jaeho-lee, korea, nc-west, ncsoft, ncsoft-west, seattle

NCsoft West gets a new CEO

by William Dobson May 15th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: MMO industry, News items

There's been another shift in the staffing over at NCsoft West. This time, former CEO Chris Chung will be moving aside to let Jaeho Lee take his place. Lee was the chief financial officer of NCsoft, and his appointment at NC West was made with the intention of improving the subsidiary's communication with home base in Korea. NCsoft's corporate PR director Jae Sung Lee gave a comment to Kotaku regarding the move:

"As part of the corporation's global strategy, global management grows increasingly important, and the need to work together across business units becomes paramount to our success. This personnel change increases our ability in each market to remain competitive."

Chris Chung hasn't been turfed out on to the front doorstep as a result of the move and will remain where he is at NCsoft West, albeit with a lesser job title.

Tags: ceo, cfo, chief-executive-officer, chief-financial-officer, chris-chung, jaeho-lee, nc-west, ncsoft, ncsoft-west, ncwest

Nexon America appoints new CEO

by James Egan Mar 3rd 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play

Nexon, creators of popular MMO titles such as MapleStory and Mabinogi, announced today that they've appointed a new CEO for Nexon America. Chris Remo reports for Gamasutra that Daniel S. Kim has been named as the CEO of Nexon's US subsidiary.

Kim isn't new to the company, having already served as executive VP with Nexon's global strategy group in Korea, Gamasutra reports. Kim is stepping into the role previously held by Nexon America's former president and CEO John H. Chi, who is no longer with the company.

Tags: business-models, ceo, chris-remo, daniel-kim, daniel-s-kim, f2p, free-to-play, gamasutra, john-chi, john-h-chi, mabinogi, maplestory, microtransactions, mmo-industry, nexon, nexon-america

Got PotBS questions? Ask Rusty!

by William Dobson Jan 29th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Historical, Podcasts, Pirates of the Burning Sea

Flying Lab Software's CEO Russell "Rusty" Williams has been fairly vocal about his company's game Pirates of the Burning Sea in the past, doing the rounds with media outlets and spreading the word. His latest project has just been announced on the PotBS official site, and will allow him to maintain his parlance with the game's community; a new podcast series called "Ask Rusty" will be featured on the site on a regular basis, and players will have the chance to do as the name would suggest and Ask Rusty questions about PotBS.

For the first podcast, questions were taken from the old "Ask an FLS developer" forum, but in the future, the questions will come from submissions to community AT flyinglab DOT com (make sure to use "Ask Rusty!" as the subject line). Russell is joined by lead designer Kevin Maginn and producer Michelle Williams in this first installment. There is a direct link to the podcast for those looking to download it or listen in their browser, and there is also an RSS feed that can be subscribed to if you like what you hear.

Tags: ask-rusty, ceo, fls, flying-lab-software, kevin-maginn, lead-designer, michelle-williams, pirates-of-the-burning-sea, podcast, potbs, producer, russell-rusty-williams, russell-williams, rusty, rusty-williams, soe, sony-online-entertainment

BioWare CEO is confident in the state of PC gaming

by Seraphina Brennan Jan 20th 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, News items

BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka is standing behind PC games, directly opposing all of the naysayers that shout the doom of PC gaming from on high.

A recent article over at Computer And Video Games.com pointed to Muzyka's confident stance as well as his expression of changing the definition of PC gaming, such as counting in the large growth of MMOs, flash games, and other casual experiences that any PC user can easily access.

"MMOs are one way that's occurring... And there are more people playing flash-based games and casual games, even core games that are played in a casual way, so maybe [they have] a more core experience and you only play them for short bursts or for half an hour or something," Muzyka was quoted as saying.

One only needs to look at the success of games such as World of Warcraft or any other MMO, as well as the very healthy Steam distribution service to note that PC gaming is far from dead.

Tags: bioware, casual-games, ceo, computer-and-video-games, flash-games, mmos, pc-games, pc-gaming, ray-muzyka, steam

WoW's invincibility 'nonsense', claims WAR lead designer

by Adrian Bott Aug 29th 2008 at 2:30PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, MMO industry, Warhammer Online

We're not going to get into those arguments again. You know, the ones that focus on whether any given game is a (cough)-killer or not. All the same, the thrust and riposte between corporate figures is always a delight to read. The latest comment is very much in the 'we could take you all down with only one Dalek' vein.

We're indebted to mtv.com for bringing us a lengthy interview with Mark Jacobs, who is VP of Mythic as well as being lead designer for Warhammer Online. Jacobs takes the opportunity to dismiss the figure of one billion dollars, the sum cited by Activision Blizzard CEO as the sum it would take for a competitor to take on World of Warcraft, as 'ridiculous numbers'.

Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, ceo, ea-mythic, war, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

Funcom CEO sells company stock

by Shawn Schuster Aug 25th 2008 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Real life, Age of Conan, Economy, MMO industry

Sure it may be completely innocent, but it's interesting nonetheless. According to a recent announcement, Funcom's CEO Trond Aas has recently sold 400,000 shares of his company's stock. The announcement also states that these shares were sold "primarily to cover Mr. Aas' acquisition costs of the shares as well as accumulated wealth tax costs of the past six years as a result of the holdings in Funcom." This 400,000 number represents only a fraction of the shares owned by the CEO.

While this Brighthub article tends to focus on the timing of the sale, pointing out that Age of Conan has already lost nearly half of its customers, no official connection has been made. However, the stock's price has fallen quite dramatically lately, closing at $13.60 per share on August 22, 2008, which is down from $55.50 per share on Age of Conan's release in May.

Update: This is a take on the Brighthub article more than anything, blaming AoC for everything, not to be confused with this original post. Plus, we get a look at the actual announcement about the stock sales itself. Sorry for any confusion of duplicates.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, ceo, funcom, stock, trond-aas

EVE Community Spotlight: Jade Constantine

by James Egan Aug 13th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Interviews, Lore, Opinion, Politics, Roleplaying

Jade Constantine is a veteran player of EVE Online, long known for having a forceful personality and a flair for writing. As the CEO of Jericho Fraction and the head of The Star Fraction alliance, Jade has become a pioneer in EVE roleplay, upholding ideologies of freedom that run counter to some of the very systems that define the game.

Along the way, Jade has made some enemies, but clearly some allies as well, having garnered the most votes in the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) election. As Chairman of the CSM, Jade Constantine is a magnet for controversy, but as an elected delegate, is also in a unique position to deal directly with CCP Games and potentially change EVE. Massively recently spoke with Jade on the state of roleplaying in EVE Online, the challenges that the CSM faces, and what it's like to be under the magnifying glass.

Tags: alliance, amarr, backstory, caldari, capsuleer, ccp, ccp-games, ceo, community, community-spotlight, corp, corporation, council, csm, empyrean-age, eve, eve-community-spotlight, eve-online, expansion, expansions, faction, factional-warfare, featured, gallente, game-mechanics, jade, jade-constantine, jericho-fraction, joystiqfeatures, militia, minmatar, politics, roleplay, roleplaying, rp, sandbox, star-fraction