nexon-america posts

The free-to-play model for online PC games seems to be working for some game developers. Earlier this week we reported that the change to such a model for Turbine's fantasy MMO Dungeons and Dragons Online has been a big success. Now Nexon America, which runs a number of similar games. has announced big percentage increases for revenues for its third quarter and September time periods

According to their press release, revenues for their third quarter (July-September) were higher by 36 percent. Revenues for September were up 44 percent. As usual, Nexon America did not reveal specific revenue numbers nor did they reveal if the company generated profits. Nexon America's launched the open beta for their next game, Dungeon Fighter Online, earlier this month and that will certainly generate even more money for the company.

In related news, Nexon announced that their FPS game Combat Arms will add a "casual server" called Foxtrot for new players. In addition new weapons, including a rocket launcher, are available for use in the game.

[via email press release]

If you are a fan of Nexon's free-to-play online games like Combat Arms and most recently Dungeon Fighter Online, you might have seen some weird animations show up on top of the Nexon.net web site this week. It's OK, you can go ahead and click on them. If you do they reveal some big changes in store for the Nexon.net site.

The biggest change is that Nexon.net will soon be no more. It will be replaced by Blockparty.com, a new site that will have a lot of Facebook-like social networking features. Yes you will still be able to access all of your Nexon games at the new site but you will also be able to do things like create a profile, message buddies and in general have more of an interactive experience with Nexon gamers even when you are not playing the games. There's no word on when Blockparty.com will go live.

After launching their early access beta test for certain people this week, Nexon America has announced that their online fighting game Dungeon Fighter Online will begin their open beta on Tuesday, September 22. If you happen to be part of the current early access beta there's no need to panic; your account will still be good when the open beta begins.

The open beta will allow gamers to check out five of the game's character classes (Fighter, Gunner, Mage, Priest and Slayer) in the game's 2D side-scrolling fighting gameplay. No final launch date for Dungeon Fighter Online has been announced yet.

Just a quick reminder this morning that we are currently running a giveaway contest to give out 25 beta codes for Nexon's next free-to-play game Dungeon Fighter Online. People can head over to the contest page right now to leave a comment and get a chance to win one of the beta codes to the online 2D fighting game.

Remember, the comments must be made by 11:59 pm ET tonight. After that we will pick 25 random commentors and each will be mailed a beta code to play Dungeon Fighter Online during the game's early access beta. Thanks once again to Nexon America for the donation of the beta codes.

While the economy is still on shaky ground, the folks at Nexon America are apparently raking in the money from their many free-to-play online games. Last month the company announced that revenues from their games had increased 35 percent compared to the same time period a year ago. Now Gamasutra reports that Nexon America has told them their August revenue numbers were up 32 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

Unfortunately, Nexon America has chosen not to give specific numbers for those revenue increases nor give out any profit numbers, although Gamasutra notes that Nexon's US sales were recorded as $30 million back in 2007. Nexon America supports a number of Asian-based online games such as MapleStory, Combat Arms, and Mabinogi in the US.

The fantasy MMO MapleStory has 6 million registered users in the US and in July Nexon said they had 70,000 concurrent users play the game at one time. The online FPS Combat Arms has 3 million registered US users and Nexon said they have seen "double digit growth" for the game over the past several months. They have also seen revenues go up for their other fantasy MMO Mabinogi. They are close to officially launching their next game in the US, the online fighting title Dungeon Fighter Online.

Nexon is getting close to the launch of its next free-to-play game Dungeon Fighter Online. The Online 2D side-scrolling fighting game will begin its early access beta on September 15 but you can win one of 25 beta keys for the game right now at Big Download.

All you have to do is post a comment on this page (one comment per person please). Comments must be made by 11:59 pm ET on Wednesday, September 16. After that we will pick 25 random commentors and each will be mailed a beta code to play Dungeon Fighter Online. Thanks to Nexon America for the donation of the beta codes.

Nexon America's free-to-play first person shooter Combat Arms recently launched its Quarantine (a.k.a. Zombie) gameplay mode. Now the developer has expanded the mode to include two more maps (Showdown and Two Towers) in the game. The game has also added a new mercenary character, Hauser, which you can see above. As you might have guessed Hauser is a bit of a throwback to the blow-em-up 1980's action movie types. He comes with a Commando Vest for taking more damage than normal.

Combat Arms has also added the Search & Destroy gameplay mode to its Power Surge map and the Specialists characters can now use the powerful Minigun in their arsenal.

We got to see a teaser trailer for the new Quarantine Mode last week but today Nexon America has announced that the new gameplay mode is now available for all players of Combat Arms, their free-to-play first-person shooter. This is basically Combat Arms' entry into the apparently growing number of shooters with some kind of zombie action.

The mod features players on a new map, Operation Overdose, where players are picked randomly to play zombies or regular humans. Player zombies have melee attacks that they can use to turn the human team into zombies. Naturally the human players don't care for this whole "living dead" option and want to shoot the zombies down. However zombies have some advantages; they are highly resistant to bullets, moderately resistant to fire, explosions and melee attacks and completely immune to any poison attacks. Oh and critical hits? Not gonna do it to the undead.

The new update also adds some new weapons to the game including new shotguns, assault rifles and a new flamethrower.
Download HD Combat Arms 'Quarantine Mode' Trailer (430 MB)
Download the Combat Arms Install Client (752 MB)
Check out all Combat Arms downloads

Next week's San Diego Comic-Con is getting bigger and bigger in terms of game news by the minute. Today we received word that Nexon America will be attending the show via the Gaming University booth. Nexon will be there to promote their online fighting-RPG game Dungeon Fighter Online. Booth models will be dressed as characters from the game and will be giving out disks with $5 in Nexon cash as well as the clients for Nexon's currently running titles and a new Dungeon Fighter Online trailer. In addition there will be presentations at the booth each day about the game.

Also, the Fusion Publishing booth will be giving out Dungeon Fighter Online posters (like the one you see above this post). The publishing company will be releasing the latest issue in their Girls of Gaming magazine which will feature six pages of Nexon game character artwork.

Nexon's free-to-play first person shooter Combat Arms celebrates its first anniversary of its US open beta launch this month and this week the company told us that players will get chanced to receive bonus experience points and more during special play periods in July. There will even be a photo contest this month with prizes that include limited edition "Nutshot" T-shirts (and yes we wanted another excuse to write "Nutshot" . . . is that wrong?).

Nexon also sent over some stats about Combat Arms since its US launch:

• Over 3.2 billion soldiers have been killed in action.
• Over 517 million of those casualties were caused by headshots
• 27 million Nutshots have been inflicted since April Fool's Day 2009.
• Over one million games played per day since launching last July.
• Over 154 million terrorists have been eliminated since Fireteam Mode was released at the end of May 2009.
• Over 35 million flags have been captured.
• Over four million bombs have been planted of which three million have exploded.
• Over 180,000 clans have been created.
• Soldiers have earned over 25 billion EXP. If one player had this much experience, he or she would have earned the game's top rank, General of the Army, over 3000 times.
• Soldiers have earned 66 billion GP, which is enough to buy every weapon and piece of gear from the shop to last many lifetimes.

Nexon has added a lot of content to the game since its launch including 10 new maps, four new gameplay modes and over 100 weapons and items. Oh, and the Nutshot; can't forget that.