Nexon Q & A Followup

After all the time and effort [MENTION=1250]Savage[/MENTION] put into this I wonder what he thinks of the replies...

I didn't intend to speak about this (nor did I think there would be a topic dedicated to this on SP) but I guess at this point I might as well be honest with how things proceeded.

Before I say anything I want to say that going into this interview I was expecting the worst. I'm not naive so I fully expected Nexon to ignore, change, and dodge every single question I submitted. I had a 10 question limit (which actually ended up being 9 when I received the interview on Friday). Obviously, there are a lot more things that I wanted to ask, but I had to pick from what I thought was the best. I want it to go without saying, as I told Nexon, that I truly appreciate them taking the time to actually talk with us at Maple-News and that in no way shape or form do I think they are bad people, mean people, or that they don't care about the game at all. That being said, my objective is to present both sides of the story and to hopefully provoke an honest and accurate answer from whomever I am interviewing.

For those of you who are interested, here is how things roughly went.

 Spoiler

I e-mailed Nexon and was granted an interview. I was told to keep it to 10 questions. I asked Nexon's PR rep if there were any questions that were off-limits or that Nexon did not want to answer. I was not given any specific list or told otherwise to avoid certain topics. They were apparently caught off guard when I made the decision on a whim to allow the MapleStory community both here at Southperry and Maple News to contribute and then vote on the questions they wanted asked most. Their PR rep told me she noticed that we had made a post on Maple News asking for questions, but did not indicate that it was a problem. Again, it was a last minute decision I thought would be cool and quite frankly the questions I would have asked (save content questions) would have probably been the same and I did edit a few questions to provoke a certain angle to hopefully get an answer from Nexon in the most direct way possible.

After a week or two of users submitting questions and voting on them I compiled questions that received the most votes both on Southperry (8 questions) and Maple News (2 questions). I submitted the questions to Nexon and did not receive a response. Then e-mailed again and got one (they cited a 'sent to spam' issue). In that e-mail I was told as if it weren't a big deal that the questions would have to be edited and one would probably have to be taken out. A similar situation had occurred in 2009 when we interviewed Nexon's then-community-manager, Nx Neutral Daniel Chin, and when I received the interview back with the completed answers, none of the questions were what I submitted and they all clearly fit an agenda. Biting my tongue at the time I went through with it in hopes that it would foster a bit of good will with Nexon and ensure that I could get future interviews and ultimately ask tougher questions (at this time I was working closely with Lloyd Korn on private server stories so I didn't want to burn any bridges). I was promised that they would stay in touch and give Maple News some exclusives. That never happened. I'm not sure if Nx Neutral was fired or that they just didn't care.

I'm the first to admit that Maple News is not a huge website. It has a following and we've done really well in the MapleStory community while keeping our dignity and vision intact. Of course it's no Hidden Street, but hey, it's fun. My mother has been a journalist for 30 years and I've always been taught both in school assignments and elsewhere to present both sides of the story. I sent an e-mail back asking what was wrong with the questions I submitted and why they would be removed and was told that some of the questions weren't appropriate for a game Q&A and that they wanted to keep things game centric. I followed up with a lengthy e-mail basically explaining the moral obligation I felt to the MapleStory community and how this was in essence, unacceptable, and that the Maple Team (who are basically responsible for how the game functions and must have some knowledge as to how features they implement affect profits as well as the well being of the game) and that the questions at the end of the day, did tie in with the game. I received no response for several weeks.

Cut back to the last 2 or 3 weeks and I e-mailed again asking if the interview was still happening. I was told yes and that the Maple Team was busy with all the updates (a legitimate excuse). Then came the promise of swag and we finally received the interview last Friday.

I was surprised by the fact that for the most part, the questions remained fairly intact (save for question seven or eight I believe where we cited our May Approval Rating Poll in May where 57% of our readers disapproved with how Nexon was running MapleStory). Overall, although I know you are all disappointed, I think this was as honest as Nexon is going to get. Obviously as a company they would prefer to keep some things under wraps and at this point in time and business, very few companies are being transparent (save for new start ups). The climate will change and companies will have to adapt. I think Nexon is making a mistake by not being completely transparent and getting a leg up on the competition, but people stick with what they know until it's too late. Just look at the major record labels. Their whole INDUSTRY was changed by a bunch of kids with computers using Napster and Limewire. And they STILL haven't adapted.

They look at their numbers and they see their profits doubling and going up every quarter. Looking at a company based purely on numbers is a mistake and I suggest anyone who is interested how companies like Facebook and Twitter succeeded as well as small and emerging business to read 'The Thank You Economy' by Gary Vaynerchuck. In essence, the 'thank you economy' is about how hard a company works at making their customers feel like they matter. The corporate mantra today is to ignore problems where as Vaynerchuck suggests acknowledging them and offering to help and make up for any mistakes. Wouldn't you feel a bit better if you were hacked or wrongfully banned and Nexon just acknowledged it, apologized, and asked how they could help resolve the situation whether by compensation in the form of mesos, maple points, etc.? Instead, Nexon ignores 90% of their problems (not ironic that the question about customer service tickets was the one question removed) and in the end it hurts them more than helps. Sure, you're going to get the mindless, casual players, who still play the game and buy NX once in a while. But it's the hardcore players, the players who form online fan communities like Maple News and Southperry, that are the ones who continue to purchase NX religiously, get their friends to join, and ultimately promote the game to new players and ensure its survival. Nexon is ignoring their dedicated players and by doing so, alienating a large amount of them. I'm sure you would all agree that many of the users here on Southperry and Maple News are cynical when it comes to Nexon America and the game as a whole. We still play because we ultimately believe in the game and enjoy it, but things are less than great right now.

Ultimately talk is cheap. Although this interview is probably the most candid interview Nexon has done to date, you could tell that the answers were triple checked by their PR department and many of them are generic and formulaic. Am I disappointed? Of course. But, that's not to say it's not an improvement and the fact that Nexon at least made an effort is reassuring. It could have been a lot worse.

I think we are at a crossroads right now. Nexon can either decide to step up their game and join the ranks of new companies using cutting edge business models; or they can go the way of the rest of the dinosaurs and die off into extinction.

P.S. Through some mutual acquaintances and sources of those who work/are involved with Nexon while also being players, I can say that Nexon is completely and utterly clueless. They are completely disconnected with their players and have absolutely no idea how to run the game and how to fix things. They are essentially trying to make decisions for a game and community that they do not understand, which is obviously evident by their answers in this interview. Although I can't speak in much detail as I promised not to at this point, let's just say that as far as fixing duping and errors; Nexon is about as competent as a chicken with its head cut off.