the-nexon-initiative posts

In March 2010, Nexon America announced its plans for The Nexon Initiative where the free-to-play game publisher would take submissions from indie game developers and then pick a few to help develop and publish into games. Now Gamasutra reports that Nexon America has picked two Western-based game developers as a result of The Nexon Initiative.

One of the two developers is London Ontario-based Antic Entertainment which was formed by Fredrick Liliegren, the co-founder and former CEO of Digital Illusions. That team has already released a browser-based vehicle combat game called Junk Battles. The other team is Poland-based One2Tribe, which previously developed the browser based duel-themed multiplayer game The Witcher Versus.

Nexon plans to reveal the games themselves in the near future with one of them representing the company's entry into the social gaming scene. Nexon also said that while The Nexon Initiative previously had a budget of just $1 million to develop the games it picked the publisher will in fact spend much more than $1 million on the two game projects it decided to develop.

Last March, the free-to-play game publisher Nexon announced its plans for The Nexon Initiative which will give prospective game developers a chance for their ideas to be co-developed and published by Nexon. Today Nexon sent over word that the company has received a final total of 115 game submissions for The Nexon Initiative.

Now Nexon must pick which of the submissions they want to continue to develop and later publish. The game developers who have their ideas picked will get a share of $1 million from Nexon for their ideas. Nexon has not said how many games they intent t to pick but that the final winners will be announced in June.

[Via email press release]

Publishers seem to be getting more and more eager to find and fund the development of indie games. Last month Activision announced plans to hold a indie game development contest. Now Nexon America , who publishers online free-to-play games like Combat Arms and Dungeon Fighter Online, has just announced plans for The Nexon Initiative where they will take submissions to help develop, fund and publish games from indie developers.

Submissions are being taken right now at the Nexon Initiative web site until April 30. The web site states they are looking mainly for online PC games or titles that have some kind of social features. Nexon will pick their choices to publish and each game will get their share of a $1 million total budget (the exact number of games Nexon will pick has yet to be determined). According to the web the the finalists will be notified sometime in June.