Hey everyone,
Kyrios here. This Friday on January 29th, I’ll be departing from the Nexon America team to pursue new career opportunities.
This may strike some of you as sudden, so I’ll try to be clear as to what led to this, without going on about my life story too much. But I think some context is necessary so you know more about what was going on in my headspace that led to my decision.
I started working at Nexon almost two years ago with a Community Manager job listing for MapleStory 2. At the time, I was a streamer, making just barely enough money to survive. I wasn’t in a great spot in life, so I applied for a job that by all means I was barely qualified for, and Nexon took a chance on me by approving that application. With no money or possessions to my name I flew across the country alone to restart my life for the better.
After the events of MapleStory 2 shutting down I was at a bit of a loss on what to do. I was then put on Mabinogi’s team temporarily where I worked with the awesome people there for about half a year until their Community Manager returned from her maternity leave. I was worried that there wouldn’t be a game I could work on since every game at that time already had a Community Manager. But then I was offered to work alongside Ghiblee in MapleStory as a second Community Manager.
I was ecstatic to not only be given yet another opportunity, but also to work on a game that I had some familiarity with and that a lot of my old MapleStory 2 community had transitioned to themselves.
However, over the many months spent in isolation working from home due to the worldwide pandemic, I had a growing desire to learn new things in order to have a better scope of what I wanted to do in life moving forward. Frankly, I’m still a bit unsure of what I want to do with my life. I started my professional career at a very late age of 27 and can’t afford to be complacent with not knowing how my future will pan out. Thus, I’ve made the decision to work on single-player games elsewhere as a means of self-discovery and trying something new.
For all of the MapleStory players, I express only gratitude for how you all accepted me into your community from the moment I arrived, spoke with me daily, and regularly guided me in learning the game that you are all so passionate about. I have the utmost respect for the passion that you all put into MapleStory and how everyone shares a common history in it. I am sorrowful that I’m departing from you all after such a brief amount of time of me being here. I know you all had high expectations for me, so I hope that at the bare minimum I was able to leave a tiny mark that you can all remember me by.
And to my colleagues at Nexon, I’ve expressed equal thanks for them having been the best people I could’ve asked to work with. I really hope that everyone in the player community gets more chances to meet and interact with them. They aren’t just faceless employees and I’m certain you’d like them more if you got to know them a little better.
In any case, I have no doubts that MapleStory will do well without me. It always has before, and you are all still in the capable care of Ghiblee who has always shouldered a majority of the community work even after I had joined the team. Continue to be passionate about the game and willing to express your thoughts and opinions in places where the team can see it. You have a voice in MapleStory and it’s always been the Community team’s responsibility to listen.
I will make a last appearance on the content preview livestream this Wednesday, January 27th at 1 PM PT. I hope to see you all there on my farewell.
With all sincerity and hope to the future of MapleStory,
Kyrios
P.S. - I wanted to also say thanks for the overwhelming amount of end-of-year 2020 community survey responses! We received over 1,000 of them and there were a lot of kind words written about the Community team in them, as well as a lot of great feedback on how Nexon can improve in the future. It fills me with determination.
