Nexon America put out not only an announcement about the number of players and the fact that the game is celebrating six years, but also some great statistics like 749,320 pets have been purchased and 5,426,694 haircuts have been received. Maplestory tops 8 million users
To celebrate, Nexon is rolling out a series of anniversary-themed in-game events and prizes throughout the entire month of May.
MapleStory continues to break its own records as more and more players continue to fall in love with its vibrant art style, exciting action-themed gameplay and compelling lore that depicts the ongoing struggle to battle the Black Mage and his army of minions. To illustrate just how massive Maple World has grown, consider that over the past six years, MapleStory players have:
Created 24,074,342 characters
Purchased 749,320 pets
Performed 97,883 weddings
Received 5,426,694 haircuts
Traversed 14 vast worlds
Collectively created more than 143,000 guilds
Additionally, a staggering eight million accounts have been registered throughout the six years Nexon has been servicing MapleStory in North America, and the growth rate shows no signs of slowing. In December 2010, the game’s massive Big Bang content update propelled the game to a new concurrent player record (136,000), nearly doubling its previous concurrency record in North America.
Even more in-game prizes may become available in celebration of MapleStory’s upcoming 500,000 Facebook fan milestone. With just 15,000 more “likes” needed to reach the half million fan goal, Nexon will award half a million prizes to players if the goal is met by May 11, 2011, the official date of MapleStory’s sixth anniversary.
Cited from https://www.webcitation.org/5ynGGFbh5?url=http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-23437-MapleStory-Tops-Eight-Million-Users-Six-Years.html
Comments
they are/ have been trying social media Viraling for the last few big updates Via the "Share" events (Nova, Over Ride,V, and a few others I think had this) and using the players to share the news of big updates, it's not working that well, especially when you have issues like the last few ban waves that scare off new players.
they should localize these apps and games, advertise them and then that should pull in more players to the main game, instead the team makes decisions like "to better advertise our Cash shop RNG, lets never directly sell Perm HTR, Perm second pend slot ever again, instead make it all RNG"
The marketing strategy that require people to "share" it, is an old strategy that needs to be thrown out. Just like any business, people will spread the word if they are happy. People will spend more if they are happy. NA need to post visible Ads on social media platforms that when tapped or clicked, they will be directed to the website or new user page that is rarely used.
The stats prove that US/GMS is a huge market, overlooking it is a big mistake.
Every company needs new people. New faces are tale-tale signs that the company is current with the times, regenerate multi-streams of income, and etc.. This company needs to revamp its marketing strategies to stay ahead. Nexon is staying afloat, but how much longer can they do things go on this way? There are really 2 options here: get aggressive with marketing or merge the servers (something I know they don't want to do). New faces will accept the game for what is and not judge it. Current players today all have left for a time period and came back, only to leave again. Young people have the free time to commit to grinding, socializing, and experiencing this game with their friends. It will be new to them, it needs to grow with them.
We (current/old) players have experience everything the game already and very critical of any changes. They will need to be the ones to carry the mantle so it can spread into their generation. Otherwise, this game will die from stagnation. The events are geared towards the youth as they should be, they just need to be here to participate.
The K-Pop idea came to mind because I believe cross promoting will do a couple of things:
I know it might seem like a stretch to some. But, if you do the numbers, it would seem NX purchases are in a downward slope. At any given time there could be 2-4k people on the servers (rough estimate with Steam numbers in mind), if 100 people at any given time purchase 100k NX every day for 12 months, that would average out to $3.9million. The numbers are a fraction of what the company did from 2005-2011. During that time their marketing strategies worked, it needs to work again.
companies in their maturity stage tend to focus on retention and not conversion. The only thing I would think of that attracted younger players was the 2D and the graphics, but with the recent way console gaming has been with 4k and newer games with story line, or even computer game titles with better resolutions and graphics/storylines, 2D side scrolling isnt trending anymore. Interests change in such a short amount of time, from what appealed from maplestory to what appeals now to the consumers, it's been a quantum leap. Their main focus should be retention. Making things better for the consumers they have now. Word of mouth and commercials wouldnt have a successful conversion rate anymore, considering American mindset is different than other regions. American consumers now want fast paced action packed.
or even if commericals did attract new players, it wouldnt mean the new players will spend money, and if they dont spend money on NX, then the commercials werent successful, and result in net loss.
"If you do the numbers" works better if you don't make the numbers up out of thin air.
Nexon, as a publicly traded company, actually publishes their numbers every quarter: http://ir.nexon.co.jp/en/
You can't have retention unless there are customers to retain. The Best Retention is seeking new prospects. Advertising needs to happen. Let me ask a question: Can you remember an Ad/Commerical/Promotion anywhere else, that was not done primarily on this site since 2014? What attracted people to this game is a number of many things, socializing is what most people have said. 2D games will always be popular with kids because they remind them of cartoons. Maplestory in its conception was the first 2D game to have a huge "Open World" feel to it with massive maps, expansive worlds, airships/boat rides, and vast continents. One of the top gaming categories is Open World landscapes. That's 2 checks in favor of MS. Here is a list of popular 2D Games that kids play:
Even Maplestory make an appearance on this list at the top of google search when searching for popular kids online/virtual world/mmo games. But, it was this the only list it made an appearance on.
https://www.gamezebo.com/2012/03/14/top-10-online-and-virtual-worlds-kids/
Branding and marketing will allow kids to experience this game. The more kids know about it, the more they will be here and their friends.
Sorry about that and thanks for the link.
Maplestory is a game that is over 14yrs old in GMS. Any company that expands decades will experience a downturn or slump. Those that make it to multi-generation status have to learn from mistakes and see pitfalls before they happen. Constant readapting and changing, because nothing ever stay the same. The old player base has changed, grew up, and managing their own lives. A new generation needs to be here, so they can grow up with their kids. Many of the old players have kids of their own and out of the 8million player base that was here before, I would estimate that 1/3-2/3rds of them have children.
It would be awesome if their kids approached them(the old players) to play MS. Because the parents are familiar with MS, they would be more inclined to let them play. Their parents would play with them. Because our market is ever changing, you got to advertise/change/adapt for each generation, you have to be willing to change with the times.
They've had 13 Years to "brand" themselves, it stuck with some and they have those loyal customers, but once branded, it's spread through word of mouth for being that good, and it went just like that when Maplestory peaked. But it cannot be like that anymore. These kinds of games aren't trending anymore. Their marketing team probably knows how expensive itll be to advertise with a high risk of non-conversion.
Moreover, if the U.S is just 4% of their margins, and they do well annually, it means they don't need the U.S market to stay as you said "afloat", they'll survive.
One thing is trying to pull in new players, but it's another to get current players to spend. Their profit margins aren't in how many new players they get but how much players overall spend.
You're making good points, but every company at some point either change and adapt or stay the course. Did you know that Blockbuster could have acquired Netflix? But, not willing to change and adapt, they lost out on acquiring one of the biggest assets of our generation, when Netflix was in its conception. They choose to overlook the opportunity in front of them and stayed the course. Staying the course is fine when there are steady customers to keep the company afloat in the green when margins are high. With the current state of the servers, a server merger would not sit well with this generation. Word of mouth would be the company is failing despite the numbers, because a lot of people will not care to research. Any bad press in the US market can spell overnight doom for any global company.
Adapting and changing can offset all of the above. It does not hurt, and what is there to lose? If successful the benefits are enormous and if the marketing campaign is "not-so-successful," the US world will know Maplestory is still alive and people will still come out of curiosity. Any number of new people coming here will be good and prolong the life of the servers.
If the servers are populated again, then that would restore faith in Nexon as a whole. Advertising will be worth every penny and worth the risks. No company can be afraid to take Risks in business.
Let me explain just how big BTS and K-Pop is here in the US. I live in a remote country town here in Tenn, where the population is under 10k. There is only 1 Pre-k School, 1 Elementary School, 1 Middle School, and 1 High School here. My little cousin goes to the middle school here and they had their own BTS army(following) here before they won the American Music Awards. Anything that is popular in the country, is a few years old in the cities. Nexon is already an established Korean Company here in the US. And K-Pop is the new Boy Bands/Groups for the US, they are this generation NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. A cross promotion event will send their following to the game in droves. Those kids will spread the word and now Maplestory is viral and current to this generation, with new people following and playing for years to come. They will grow through school with the game and 5-6yrs later Maplestory would successfully reach the 20yr benchmark.
I don't think K-Pop could have been popular in the US at a better time, and no other company/industry seem to know what to do with K-Pop in our market. This would be a golden opportunity and it would keep MS ahead of the trends and current with the times.
The Cosplay style they used then was ingenious during a time when cosplaying was unheard of in this market. Now Cosplaying has taken over the gaming, comic book, and sci-fi industries, not to mention these industries intermingle. You can find Cosplaying at the following big events:
Advertising in this style set the trend for every other company to follow. Not one was doing this at that time and it stuck gold then. These videos was funny, and just plain ol' good. Below are the videos that someone saved 3yrs ago.
Mechanic Class - Eric Class is OP
Battle Mage Class - Zombie Class OP - MagePowerOver 9000
Wild Hunter Class - Vikings would be OP
Social Media is Bigger than Ever today. All they would have to do is Rinse and Repeat the same process, upload to Vine or some other popular site, and with a little funding this could be viable for today's time.
4K Ultra HD Phones and Cameras are common these days. 4k Streaming services are common. Most editing software is compatible with 4k/HD(they are probably already using them). Uploading to Social Media is free. Just time and a little money editing and staging/acting is all that would be needed. The state of the servers means that extra measures need to be taken, despite the concerns. It is what risks is all about.
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If this was done in 2010, this means there is a Proven Track Record of it being massively successful (look at the initial post for 2010's numbers). Everyone is doing the same style of videos on Youtube and other streaming services today, most of them are doing it for free. Maplestory did this ahead of the trend for advertising in 2010, Social Media was not prevalent then. Now, this style of video is the norm.
They have few things in favor here: Experience, Proven Track Record, Setting a Market Trend. They can do this now and take the gaming world by storm. Also, Cosplaying is a theme for the MapleFest. I think they would know what to do here better than other game company/industry.