Why is Nexon.net changing to BlockParty.com? Gamasutra.com recently did an interview with Nexon America CEO, Min Kim, in which he discussed BlockParty.com as well as the future for Nexon and players.

GDC Austin: Nexon’s Kim Announces BlockParty, Talks Post-’Penguin’ Kids

At GDC Austin, Nexon America vice president Min Kim considered what developers need to do to get ready for the “penguin army” — kids who were born during the dot-com boom years, and the first fully-connected generation — as they graduate from Club Penguin.

These kids, which Nexon internally refers to as the “bubble babies”, and describes as “the first truly connected generation, born during the dot.com bubble” are already playing online social games, says Kim. “We hypothesize the big boom is going to happen when you get these kids, and it will be very natural for them.”

What they’re doing now isn’t his biggest worry; he’s more concerned about their future interests , as his company’s games, such as Maple Story, appeal more to teens, says Kim.

“By 2012 they’re going to be 11, 12, 13 and the sweet spot for our demo is around 14, 15, 16, and that’s not going to happen till 2015. We think that there’s going to be an explosion of this kind of [social gaming] behavior by 2015.”

Where After Penguin?

These users will abandon Club Penguin and the other kid-targeted services, and not for other games — unless they’re successfully captured, says Kim. “After they’re done with all of these services, where are they going to go next? Are they going to stay social on the PC? Abandon the PC for console?” No, he says. He thinks YouTube, iTunes, and other media stand to benefit from this audience — unless efforts are made to appeal to them.

That leads naturally to the launch of Nexon’s BlockParty service, a new brand for its social gaming portal with a new identity designed to appeal to a slightly older audience. Kim announced its existence during his presentation.

“The cool thing about this versus what else is going on in the market, is that we’re going the opposite way,” says Kim. “If you look at Facebook, they’ve gotten all of their users and are figuring out how to keep their users entertained. We’ve got the games and want to keep a robust community.” Community is the relationships between people, Kim reminds us — not just between users but also between companies and the users.

When it comes to advice on selling items, Kim did have one caveat, however: “I feel like all services are different, so I’m going to talk about the logic behind why people are buying things, and you can create your own mix.”

‘A New Behavior’ For Game Monetization?

Says Kim, “We’ve done this from 2000 up to now, many different types of games and demographics, and from that we’ve been able to create our own rulesets that we apply to many different types of games,” however, not all rules apply to all the games Nexon runs.

Kim pointed out that arcade games, once hugely popular, were their own microtransaction-like business model — until they were crushed by home console games.

It was a natural fit for gamers until it was replaced, and a new generation’s behavior can be shaped by its own options, says Kim. “Why can’t we develop a new behavior? As these types of online services are coming to the PC, with a new generation growing up, why can’t they develop a new purchasing behavior?”

Figuring out what users would pay for “was just trial and error,” at first, says Kim. “And even for a lot of the services you guys are thinking of, I think it’s more important to be agile and try many things.”

When it comes to making changes, says Kim, “it’s better to be agile than right.” But if you analyze your data — and you must, he says — “do a lot of things and be quick enough to make changes.”

“With an online game you’re creating a relationship you will have with your consumer for a very long time, and if the commitment is not high at the start,” says Kim. But depth of engagement is required for microtransactions to be valuable.

Quality and value are key, says Kim. If a game gains users, it will start to drive transactions, but they may not stay. “You can’t sacrifice game quality for community, but if you have all your friends playing, you’re going to have a great time.” How to keep them playing? “The first need that you really have to satisfy is fun. I think people start off thinking business model, but if your game is not fun, the community is not going to stick around.”

That’s important, Kim says, because “people are content for other people — you need the non-paying users as well as the paying users.”

The Eight Game Item Types

When it comes to items, they can serve eight purposes, says Kim: function, envy/prestige, recognition, collecting, rarity/scarcity, competition, friendship, peer pressure. These are the keywords, he said several times, that you should be thinking about when designing your items to sell.

There are obviously functional items like tokens that allow you to continue your game in Nexon’s Dungeon Fighter Online, but all items fulfill some function for gamers — it just may be largely or entirely social.

Many “vanity” items (that affect players’ appearances) popular, but Kim doesn’t believe the term should be used. “I get this question all the time. I really believe vanity equals function. All items are functional items. People actually talk to you if you have cash items purchased. Vanity is in the eye of the beholder.”

When it comes to your business model, says Kim, “What you’re trying to do is a mimic the subscription. When you’re mimicking that subscription you know that most of your players aren’t going to pay. Don’t make the non-payers for that subscription. Don’t shoot for an ARPU of $100 because you know 10 players won’t pay.”

It’s also important, rather than concentrating on a few items everybody is forced to buy due to the game’s design, says Kim, to “create a lot of different items, and hope that people will buy a subset.” He also says, “Not everybody wants to buy the same thing.”

When it comes to users with prepaid cards, says Kim, make sure you have a wide variety of items available so you can quickly recoup the value of the card. “Think of a candy store. When your mom gave you $2 or $3 and you walked in and you’re like ‘what can I buy?’ and you’re maxing that out. You have a lot you want to purchase and that money is never enough.”

These items are also very important from a user retention perspective: “Collectable items create a relationship between you and the game.”

Item lifecycle is a tricky issue, says Kim. How does Nexon drive sales? “We do a lot of events. We actually do a lot of sales. Our site is kind of like a store. If we see the lifecycle of an item is dwindling we’ll put it on sale and potentially pull that item out.”

“Even in a game like MapleStory, there are so many items that are good, and there’s the paralysis of choice.” Kim notes that you can generate “more sales on saying you’re going to get rid of [an item] than keeping it in the system for another year or two.”

Hi there!

A new server check with an awesome event from Nexon Europe for Maplestory!
Check it out below:

The event

Also, they will go trough a server check:
Dear Maplers,

We will go through a Server Check on Wednesday, 30 September, 2009
at 4:00 a.m. CET (GMT+2).
The Server Check will last for approximately 2 1/2 hours and during that time
the users will not be able to access the game and the website.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

- Maintenance of the game system
- Maintenance of the website
- Royal Hair Coupon will be added :

Royal Hair Coupon

- Adding new cash items in the Cash shop:

- Sale on Owl of Minerva item (30%)
- End of Monster Box Drop Event

Time:[Game] : Wednesday, 30 September, 2009 at 4:00 a.m. ~ 6:30 a.m. CET (GMT+2)
[Website]: Wednesday, 30 September, 2009 at 4:00 a.m. ~ 6:00 a.m. CET (GMT+2)

Thank you and Happy Mapling!

- MapleStory Europe Staff –

~Pudding

ps. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, and join our forum! (Click to go to our forum)

Blockheads are the creepy guys running out of the NEXON logo. Nexon says they will be using them a lot in events such as the Blockhead Invasion!

Here is Nexon’s intro video in case you’ve forgotten since the last time you’ve played.

This means that Nexon will be changing their name to BlockParty! This, coupled with various new features, could perhaps bring about new-found interest in Nexon from onlookers hoping to play some new games.

www.blockparty.com is the URL!

If you click on the Blockheads at the top-middle of the screen, you’ll see what they will be doing with the site.

As nexon says:

What is going on at Nexon.net you ask?? The Blockheads (the feisty little green dudes with party hats) have come to share the BlockParty gospel in their…”unique” way. We don’t always understand their tactics, but they know how to have fun doing it, so what are you going to do?

So check out the BlockParty infotainment animatory thing. The Blockheads spent a lot of time on it, and we’re pretty sure you will see why.

So definately get ready for some new events coming up on nexon.net!

~Pudding

*thanks to Savage for updating*

In celebration of the closed beta launch of Dungeon Fighter Online, a new game by Nexon America, I have received 5 closed beta keys which will be given away to 5 people in this event.

What you have to do

• Create a 1000×158 pixels fall-themed MapleStory banner for the Maple News website
• The banner must not have any text whatsoever
• It must be a JPG file
• You must submit the link to your banner in this forum thread

The top 5 banner creators will have their banners featured on Maple-News.com and will receive a closed beta key. A new banner will be displayed every week.

The deadline is Friday October 2nd, 2009.

*Note: Your closed beta key may or may not work depending on Nexon America and if the keys have an expiration date. The keys were received September 8th and we realize this is quite late to be holding an event, but because of the recent DDoS attack the event was delayed.  Please be aware they may not work before entering the competition.

I was contacted by MentaL, the owner of RaGEZONE, who linked me to this announcement found on the RaGEZONE forums regarding Nexon’s recent Private Server announcement (see this post). Below is the official announcement from the RaGEZONE forums.

Hi,

It has come to my attention that Nexon (MapleStory license holders) are currently releasing a lot of statements regarding the “private server” scene and to which I feel obligated to say my part.

First and foremost , these servers are created by fans of the game, a lot of them still play the official servers and on the side create a server for others to play, their intention may or may not be profit but for Nexon to release the statements that they have is absurd.

99.99% of servers you will find here do not contain keyloggers, infact, we have a strict policy regarding this and have done since the day RaGEZONE was created, anybody found releasing virus’s, trojans or any malicious software that coincides with maplestory (or any other server) are instantly banned from our forums so for Nexon to say that by playing a server you will be infected with a trojan/virus is uncalled for.

Secondly, if a server does have a donation/cyber shop, 99.99% of them use PAYPAL, a free service which stores no information to the actual server owner other than your email address and home address, so how can they justify stating that “These illegal servers do not have legal or any other binding obligations to keep your information secure. This means your information has a high risk of being shared, leaked or stolen from unofficial, unsecure servers” its paypals liability for any information obtained not the server owners, paypal transactions do not release ANY credit card details.

Nexon should rethink its words and actions as each time I read something regarding this company they seem to lower their reputation.

MentaL

Who ever said Nexon doesn’t listen to their community? Earlier this month I wrote a review of Monster Carnival 2. One aspect of the party quest which was lacking was the EXP. Well, from September 23rd to October 20th Monster Carnival 2 will have EXP boosts when you win or lose!

Monstrous EXP for All Monster Carnivalians

(9/23/09 to 10/20/09)

Slaying monsters in the Monster Carnival is no walk in the park, and as such, more EXP should be garnered for besting them. So, from September 23^rd to October 20^th you will earn more EXP than you used to in the Monster Carnival 2 PQ. By how much, you ask?

During this increased EXP event:

When you win Monster Carnival 2, you get an additional 30,000 EXP.

When you lose Monster Carnival 2, you get an additional 10,000 EXP.
Did we mention that there’s also an event medal?

When you play Monster Carnival 100 times during the event, you will be awarded with Fervent Carnivalian Medal that boasts awesome stats of: Speed +5, HP +5, and MP +5, which will be good for the duration of the event.

So go and enjoy the carnival!

In case you were too busy with school, life, sleep, or just plain didn’t feel like checking; here’s what was new in the latest MapleGlobal patch version 0.76.

To find more information on Growth Items, click HERE.

Hello people!

Since I’m new here I probably have to say hi and tell about myself…

Well lets get started:
I’m Lars (known as MrPudding here, and on Maplestory fora), I’m 13 (turning 14 in January) and I live in the Netherlands, meaning I live in a (GMT+1) zone.
I learned English at school and I will be here to update about MapleStory Europe, MapleStory Global, MapleStory SEA, Combat Arms Europe, Combat Arms Global, Dungeon Fighter, Mabinogi and so many more Nexon games!
(bolded will probably be my main tasks here)

I am seriously ADDICTED to Combat Arms and MapleStory!

Well if you have any questions left, comment below!

Goodbye for now!

Pudding.

This is why Mac truly beats Windows, LOL.

Posted from: http://maplestory.nexon.net/WZ.ASPX?PART=/News/View&boardNo=100&contentNo=005fF
Additional info at: http://maplestory.nexon.net/WZ.ASPX?PART=/Event/View&boardNo=200&contentNo=005fJ

I haven’t made a article in a long time. However, Global Maplestory has a new patch.

 MapleStory will be going through a scheduled update on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009. 

This one involves the game servers, and it’ll last for approximately 7 hours.