2012-02-14, 04:55 PM
North America
For the fourth quarter, revenue in North America was ¥1.40 billion, a decrease of 9%
from the same quarter a year ago. On a constant currency basis, revenue declined
4%. The decline in revenue was mainly caused by disruptions in the service of our
games from aggressive hacking attacks over the Christmas holiday, our busiest
season of the year for North America. These disruptions resulted in some delayed
content updates during this important season and a related decline in usage. As in
Korea, no financial information was lost as a result of these attacks since we dont
collect credit card information. We responded rapidly to the hacking attempts that
led to these disruptions, and also invested significant time and effort into further
building out our infrastructure to protect our players and their information. As we
have moved into the first quarter we are continuing our efforts to address certain
stability issues that have arisen in the new infrastructure. More details on our
worldwide security plan are below. Despite the challenging fourth quarter in North
America, for the full year we delivered year-over-year revenue growth of 13% (24%
on a constant currency basis).
We delivered new content and updates to most of our games with the exception of
Vindictus and Combat Arms. MapleStory had two updates during the quarter
Ascension and Legends, which included a new wedding system, added three new
classes and several new in-game items. MapleStorys MCCUs reached 100,665 in
December, the second highest in the games history in North America. In Mabinogi,
we launched the Merchant of Venice update, which introduced a popular new pet,
called Ice Dragon, and added a series of new quests based on the Shakespearean
play. We also introduced content updates for Dragon Nest, Dungeon Fighter Online,
and Atlantica. All of these games saw an increase in users compared to the prior
quarter, driven by both the updates and by seasonality.
During the quarter we signed a publishing contract for Shadow Company, a FPS
game developed by Doobic Interactive Co., Ltd., which we expect will grow the
already solid FPS user base we have in North America, currently led by Combat
Arms. We expect the game will launch in North America in the second half of 2012.
Despite the operational challenge in Q4, we are happy with our growth in North
America during the first three quarters of 2011, and our long-term outlook for this
territory remains very positive. We believe that over time, two strong trends will drive
our business in North America and in Europe. The first is the continuing penetration
of high-speed consumer broadband, which we believe has now reached a critical
mass of users. As in China, the proliferation of broadband connections is giving
millions of consumers in the West easy access to Nexon games.
The second trend is the rapidly growing awareness and beginning mass adoption of
the free-to-play business model that we pioneered more than 10 years ago, and
have been refining ever since.
For the fourth quarter, revenue in North America was ¥1.40 billion, a decrease of 9%
from the same quarter a year ago. On a constant currency basis, revenue declined
4%. The decline in revenue was mainly caused by disruptions in the service of our
games from aggressive hacking attacks over the Christmas holiday, our busiest
season of the year for North America. These disruptions resulted in some delayed
content updates during this important season and a related decline in usage. As in
Korea, no financial information was lost as a result of these attacks since we dont
collect credit card information. We responded rapidly to the hacking attempts that
led to these disruptions, and also invested significant time and effort into further
building out our infrastructure to protect our players and their information. As we
have moved into the first quarter we are continuing our efforts to address certain
stability issues that have arisen in the new infrastructure. More details on our
worldwide security plan are below. Despite the challenging fourth quarter in North
America, for the full year we delivered year-over-year revenue growth of 13% (24%
on a constant currency basis).
We delivered new content and updates to most of our games with the exception of
Vindictus and Combat Arms. MapleStory had two updates during the quarter
Ascension and Legends, which included a new wedding system, added three new
classes and several new in-game items. MapleStorys MCCUs reached 100,665 in
December, the second highest in the games history in North America. In Mabinogi,
we launched the Merchant of Venice update, which introduced a popular new pet,
called Ice Dragon, and added a series of new quests based on the Shakespearean
play. We also introduced content updates for Dragon Nest, Dungeon Fighter Online,
and Atlantica. All of these games saw an increase in users compared to the prior
quarter, driven by both the updates and by seasonality.
During the quarter we signed a publishing contract for Shadow Company, a FPS
game developed by Doobic Interactive Co., Ltd., which we expect will grow the
already solid FPS user base we have in North America, currently led by Combat
Arms. We expect the game will launch in North America in the second half of 2012.
Despite the operational challenge in Q4, we are happy with our growth in North
America during the first three quarters of 2011, and our long-term outlook for this
territory remains very positive. We believe that over time, two strong trends will drive
our business in North America and in Europe. The first is the continuing penetration
of high-speed consumer broadband, which we believe has now reached a critical
mass of users. As in China, the proliferation of broadband connections is giving
millions of consumers in the West easy access to Nexon games.
The second trend is the rapidly growing awareness and beginning mass adoption of
the free-to-play business model that we pioneered more than 10 years ago, and
have been refining ever since.