Yesterday, big Korean game companies such as NCsoft and Nexon announced their financial reports for the 4th quarter of 2018 and also for the year. In Nexon’s latest presentation slides to shareholders, it was revealed that there are no PC games outside of South Korea planned for 2019, with the 3 “lucky” PC games being Ascendant One, Dragon Hound and Project BBQ. I doubt Project BBQ will make it for a launch this year though. Also, Nexon only has 1 mobile game prepared for the huge China market (usually under Tencent), which is definitely a shock. Plans do change, and Nexon might still spring a surprise title.
Most of the games have been announced at G-Star 2018, so you can head over to this article or this tag for more details. Here are some key points from the presentation slides:
• Overall, Nexon performed worse than expected in terms of revenue when comparing the 4th quarter of 2018 to the 4th quarter of 2017 (most comparisons are done this way). Both PC and mobile revenues are down by 14% and 8% respectively.
• Nexon blames the lower revenue from mobile on the under-performing Japan (new mobile titles did not perform well) and South Korea markets.
• In its home-base of South Korea, Nexon is still relying on MapleStory to pull in profits due to FIFA Online 4 and Dungeon & Fighter losing some grounds.
• Interestingly, Nexon mentioned that MapleStory 2 (along with Dungeon & Fighter) is doing very well in China under Tencent Games, using the term “driven by strong performances”. MapleStory has had a wretched journey since starting in South Korea, and most likely in North America right now too. I am curious how much did MapleStory 2 contributed in China contributed to the overall revenue for the massive China market.
That is it for now, and as of the posting of this article, a summary of the teleconference call has not been made available. This is the session after Nexon presents the financial report where bank analysts and other money people ask some tough questions to the Nexon board. If you did not know, Nexon is currently up for sale with several interested parties.
