Its was a longtime sine 2003, when this game was first released. During that time many people have grew up with fond childhood memories playing this game. Some people have gotten married in real life and met life long friends. While things have change and people moved on there is one demographic that needs primary focus; the Kids. The young generation need to flood this game again. They are the ones with the free time to devote countless hours to play and they have will have their own memories to attach themselves to the game, growing up with it.
The secondary demographic are the players who have these memories, the dedicated loyals. The loyal fanbase grew up playing this game and many people continue to play because of pure nostalgia. Classic Maplestory videos on youtube have over 100-500k+ views, with people reminiscing with feels and tears. Capitalizing on this market proves to things:
- 1) The game is a cult classic
- 2) The game have many players, waiting to play again.
The Kids
The game need to appeal to the kids again. With so much technology out there these days, their attention span in shorter than ever. Here are my suggestions to tap into that market.
Commercials
I found out about this game from old commercials on Nickelodeon and Toonami from back in the day. I had no idea what mmos were before playing this game. The younger generation need to find this game again. Marketing to their favorite channels will bring them flooding back to this game again. Commercials are the safest bet because they call watch cartoons. I have younger cousins and they will switch apps and streaming services, so much that none will hold their attention long enough. Advertising on phones is a crap shoot because you can totally miss or overshoot your mark when targeting the desired audience.
Simplify the Game:
Remember this game have a very chibi childish style to it. That is why this game is so appealing to kids. The game was much simpler back then, and that is why so many kids/teens was attracted to it. You didn't need to spend $600 just to be able to attack normal mobs past lvl 200 in this game. The progress was more streamlined and made sense. Quests/pqs was important and helped give the game a sense of direction. Mobs lvls made more sense and their placement more strategic, you could easily know where to go and what to do.
The focus switched from this and the game was revamp to please the fast lvlers with more rewards and recognition for doing so. The game itself should have never switched its focus from the core of the game. New player and returning players all have one thing in common:
The Game Is Too Confusing 
. Kids will not want to play an overly complicated game where after lvl 150 they dont know where to go, what to do, or how to improve their equipment stats to keep up with the rapid scaling mobs hp/defense.
The Loyals
An Official Classic Maplestory server needs to happen, there is just too much potential returning customers left out there. Not doing so will leave them feeling ignored. Bringing these people back to the game will have an influx in server population and revenue. Youtube and other websites prove just how big the old mapler market is. When Hiddenstreet, the Gamefaqs message boards, and other sites have closed or are now dead(low activity) those are signs that the market have spoken. Many people want an chance to relive their nostalgia, and if a fraction of lets say 100k stay around, it could mean a lot for Maplestory future.
These are my ideas of what I think would bring people back to the game, while attracting new clients for years to come.
Comments
In Korea, Maplestory is still one of the most played games (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/78ee1k/current_pc_bang_list_of_most_popular_games/)
I highly doubt that the numbers about a returning player base is as large as you say it is. Maplestory works in Korea, and doesn't need a new type of server that will further split the community.
You're hoping that a classic server will bring more players, I bet instead it'll probably fracture some proportion of Reboot and Bera, and then eventually flop as it receives little to no support from the dev team, leaving us with fewer players than before.
So takeaway: Maplestory is popular in Korea, and we receive all updates from them. They have no reason to make classic servers, and you're overestimating the number of people that would rejoin to play a classic server. I'm not going to discuss the differences in gameplay, because they're too vast and debateable that it's not possible to come to a reasonable conclusion.
Maplestory is a different game than before, and that's the way it's going to stay most likely. MMOs are generally not as popular a genre they used to be, and old ones are definitely not going to see a huge resurgence in players, regardless of heavy marketing or releasing new servers.
This is all my opinion, as it's not possible to give concrete evidence on numbers, since we aren't given numbers regarding the GMS population, and we certainly don't know the population of players who would come back for a classic server.
Chronic_Shock: I think that you are vastly underestimating the potential of a Classic Server. Runescape classic server have proven workout very well for them since they have unveiled it. Also, a Classic Server was not my main focus. It is 2 fold the young demographic to continue to the legacy of MS and Classic for the Nostalgic crowd. That is killing 2 birds with one stone
I am aware that KMS are the Developers and GMS are merely publishers. There are just to much revenue left out in the open for a classic sever not to happen in the Global Market. Heck they could even do test pilots of it to see how many people are willing to support it. But, the primary focus is the youth. KMS saw fit to run commercials back in the day, it proved successful. The reason Maplestory was such a huge hit, was NA and Korea working together in tandem to make it a huge success.
Koreans are privileged to be raised in a country where MMOs are second nature and apart of popular culture. US is not the case, so marketing here need to happen to revive the game. Looking at the current server populations, something needs to happen and the status quo is not helping.
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