Massively^™

MapleStory's 0.56 patch has gone live! The patch's additions are impressively robust; they include a new region and town, guild alliance support, windowed mode support, auto-inventory sorting, macros, and extra party search features.

The new area is called Ariant. You'll find it on the continent of Ossyria. Apparently it's some kind of Arabian Nights-esque desert setting (summer, desert; they're both hot -- get it?). A whole slew of new quests, NPCs, monsters, and items have been introduced as well. Of course, the shop has been updated, too. A special event begins with this patch -- summer-themed items like surfboards will drop throughout the season.

Dude, that's like totally rad! Um, sorry. You're right; that was uncalled for.

The development team working on Sugar Rush is based in Vancouver, Canada and includes former Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios Group vice president and creative director Steve Rechtschaffner, as well as studio Klei Entertainment. Headed by Jamie Cheng, Klei Entertainment previously developed and published Eets, a 2D puzzle game for PCs which was later revamped for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade.

It will be interesting to see how Sugar Rush does in North America. MapleStory is unquestionably highly successful. It put Nexon on the global radar and shocked the naysayers when MapleStory earned 29 million dollars in revenue -- not bad for a free to play MMOG! The whole western and eastern MMOG market juxtaposition is fascinating; many have shunned a lot of eastern games in discussing the western market and vice-versa. A video from the closed beta showcasing game play is after the jump. Let us know what you think.

Over at WarCry, Sheloman Byrd - the product coordinator for free 2d MMORPG MapleStory - has been giving the lowdown on the game and its lighthearted approach. Popular among gamers around the 17-18 year old range and extraordinarily successful economically, MapleStory offers side-scrolling anime-inspired action with a heavy emphasis on quirky fun.

Weddings have been a surprisingly popular element of the game (a phenomenon we also saw with Angels Online) with the choice of either a Vegas style wedding or a Cathedral one. The latter even involves quests, with the groom having to hunt for items and the bride seeking the blessing of her parents. Married couples in the game also have exclusive content, including a Party Quest of their own.

There's clearly demand out there for wedding content in MMOs - at least the bright and bouncy teen-market kind. CoX released a Wedding Pack containing exclusive costumes and emotes not so long ago, although weddings there are still purely roleplaying affairs, as they are in WoW. We can't help but wonder what the result would be if more games supported in-game marriage. Is that what the teen demographic really wants?

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.

Just when we thought Mabinogi couldn't get any cuter, the latest update has us reaching for our diabeetis medicine. So what's new? Pets! Players now can choose between one of five animals: 2 types of cats, a dog, a fox, and a wolf, with more types to come. These pets will follow you around, fight alongside you, and even level up like you do.

Each pet is distinctive, with its own set of unique skills, whether melée or magic-based. Available to every player through the Nexon Cash Shop, no one is barred from gaining a constant companion for life. You can check out the pets trailer after the jump, and watch for the next big Mabinogi content update, due June 25th, featuring more pets, a new dungeon, new boss monster, and a new spell for players to learn!

[Thanks, Robert!]

2007 proved to be a good year for Nexon in the United States, particularly with its free-to-play MapleStory. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that the although the game has 85 million users worldwide, only 5.9 million of them are U.S. players. Given the relatively small percentage of its player base located in the United States, it's surprising that MapleStory made an absolute killing on in-world transactions in 2007; the WSJ reports that 'Nexon's U.S. revenue last year more than tripled to $29.3 million from $8.5 million the prior year.'

Jeremy Liew provides some additional commentary on the Nexon windfall over at Lightspeed: "With $30m in US sales and 6m US registered users, assuming a 20% "active player" rate and 10% "buyer rate", that implies an ARPU of $20/mth which sounds about right and is consistent with number we've seen from games in Asia. It sounds like the US will be following very similar models of virtual goods monetization that we've seen in Asia." It's interesting that the predominantly Asian business model of legitimized RMT is already gaining some degree of acceptance in the United States, albeit a slow acceptance.

Via PlayNoEvil

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!

From Nexon America, the publisher of the wildly successful MapleStory, comes Combat Arms, a new free-to-play online first-person shooter which shares many qualities of both an MMO and an FPS in one. With persistent worlds, customizable characters (and equipment) and the opportunity for players to track their performance against others in the Combat Arms community, the game should prove to be a contender for those seeking something new in the free-to-play market.

The game will be entering the closed beta phase on May 30th, which will be available for one week exclusively through FilePlanet. According to Nexon America's vice president of marketing Min Kim, "Competition in video games among friends is always fun, but Combat Arms takes it to another level by letting gamers frag for free. Combat Arms delivers all the great socialization elements found in other popular Nexon Games and presents them in one of the most popular gaming genres in North America."

It's been a while since we last spoke of Mabinogi, but that doesn't mean that Nexon has stopped developing it. In fact, the game's grown a bit, and offers players a new Generation (the Mabinogi equivalent of Chapters) in Paladin. The new content features a new town, Emain Macha (continuing the Celtic theme), new dungeons, new equipment and spells, and the eponymous Paladin abilities.

If you have no knowledge of what Mabinogi's all about, you can check out our First Impressions piece for ideas on what to expect. Herald in the next generation with Paladin!

[Thanks, Robert!]

Nexon's super-popular MMO Maple Story is celebrating its third anniversary with a slew of new content. Among the new items and events players can look forward to are the ability to temporarily become a monster, a series of special Maple weapon drops, Boss Clones combat, the new Yakuza-themed region called Showa, and a unique Maple Story Anniversary Hat.

But perhaps best of all, a rampaging attack by the cake-based monster called Big Puff Daddy! No longer will his people be oppressed, devoured at will simply because they're delicious! (Note: while we do not have a photo of BPD, chances are good that it will look nothing like the photo to the right) If you're a member, enjoy the new content. If not, now would be a great time to join!

[Thanks, Robert!]

The Vancouver International Digital Festival, or VIDFEST, is an event for digital media professionals. This covers all aspects of media, including animation, Web 2.0, and gaming. Nexon, makers of Maple Story and Mabinogi, among others, will have a presence there, and in fact have managed to get Chris Anderson, Wired magazine editor -in-chief, and author of The Long Tail and the upcoming Free: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business to speak at the keynote address on the 23rd of May.

It's easy to see the connection; Nexon has proved that the free-to-play/microtransactions model can be a successful one. American MMOs are still reluctant to try this out, preferring the standard subscription model instead. Perhaps Anderson can sway the hearts and minds of the captains of the digital industry?

[Thanks, Robert!]

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.

It appears that Gaia's Craig Sherman thinks that World of Warcraft isn't a success when compared to the hundreds of millions of "willing-to-play" teenagers it hasn't managed to claim as subscribers. A ridiculous claim, as success is a relative term -- especially when comparing free-to-play titles with something like World of Warcraft. We're not saying that games like Maple Story or Puzzle Pirates aren't good, they're just a different breed of MMOs.

Maybe we should measure MMO success by degree of pop-culture status: Has Maple Story had commercials featuring William Shatner, Mr. T and Vern Troyer? Will Puzzle Pirates become a theatrical film anytime soon? No, but that doesn't make these games any less successful in their own right. Plus, that's a ridiculous way of measuring success. There's a lot of differences in these games, but one thing is for sure -- World of Warcraft is definitely a successful game.

The Korea Times has up a piece on Nexon's MapleStory, a title that the article refers to as a homegrown success story. Though it's long been known that the game has runaway worldwide popularity, the article adds some concrete numbers to that perception. How accurate the numbers are, of course, is only for Nexon to know. They're still food for thought. According to the Times, Nexon just recently signed contracts to spread MapleStory into a total of 60 countries. Brazil and Vietnam are the 59th and 60th. They also claim the game has 83 million players overall. 18 million are in South Korea alone.

They also touch on the game's success outside of the online games arena. There are over 700 MapleStory-related products, from comics to card games, on the market right now. My favorite factoid: the highest-level character in the game is played by a man in his 40s who runs a pizza joint. He lives in the city of Gwangju.

[Via PlayNoEvil]