free2pocalypse

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  • Nexon's Min Kim on the 'Free2pocalypse'

    by 
    Jef Reahard
    Jef Reahard
    12.02.2011

    Nexon bigwig Min Kim recently checked in with Gamasutra for a brief interview regarding the state of the company's global free-to-play initiative. In short, business is booming, and while MapleStory was viewed as an oddity when it launched with a F2P model eight years ago, it's now much closer to the norm. "A lot of people laughed at the business model, and now a lot of companies are starting to try to understand it or experiment with it. We've been calling it 'the free2pocalypse.' Every company is looking at it; the market is just way larger," Kim explains. He also talks a bit about Nexon's new Live Games division, which consolidates the company's operations, marketing, and communications groups into a single entity under his direction. Finally, Kim explains the logic behind the decision to remove Nexon's name from its uber-successful retail store game cards. In a nutshell, the benefits of unifying the virtual item currencies across a diverse selection of games outweighed the name recognition afforded by the Nexon banner.