Nexon Q & A Followup

I think it is directly related to cultural differences. I may be wrong but the way I see it Nexon America is a so called "American" company but still run by Koreans with the Korean way of thinking. As long as Nexon America is tightly controlled from Korea with their own administrators things will continue the way they are. It does not bode well for the health of the game.

That's definitely true to some extent. But, I was not talking about that specifically. Cultural differences aside, Nexon America's current staff are disconnected from the community and what needs to be done. They have to rely on players to determine issues. It's clear that none of them actively play the game so they don't understand what is really wrong with the game. They have no idea about the economy, hacking, the way players interact and how different features affects gameplay, and so on. Yes, they are controlled by Nexon Korea and are just adapting KMS content for GMS, but many of the issues in the game stem from the disconnect between Nexon and their players. They lack a concrete and in-depth understanding of how the game is played which could be rectified by actually immersing themselves in the game they create (or hiring actual players to be part of their team...which is obviously unlikely as far as development goes, but their 'volunteers' on the GMS official forums actually have more say than you would think).

If you want my opinion as much as I enjoy the game, at the current rate it will survive a few more years at best. Things change so quickly now, especially with internet-based companies, that unless you're constantly reinventing yourself and pushing boundaries you will quickly become extinct. The only reason MapleStory is still around, in my opinion, is because it is a genuinely good game and has a lot of dedicated players. Still, it's easy to make it seem like Nexon is doing better than they are and I think the fact that they've started to open up even just a bit is evidence that things aren't going very well.