The First Descendant screenshot (Courtesy of Nexon)
Gaming giant Nexon Co. is set to enjoy record sales this year thanks to the strong debut of its new title The First Descendant and the success of a mobile version of its box-office hit Dungeon & Fighter in China.
Nexon Co. is expected to report revenue of more than 4 trillion won ($2.9 billion) for the first time in 2024, industry sources said. The South Korean-Japanese game publisher listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange said its revenue in 2023 rose 20% to 423.4 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in February.
The First Descendant topped the best-selling game list by revenue on Steam, the world’s largest PC game platform with concurrent users of 34 million worldwide, as of Wednesday. The game launched a day earlier took first place in major markets such as the US, China, Japan and France while ranking No.2 in South Korea after PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS by Krafton Inc.
The First Descendant is a looter shooter game, a subgenre of action role-playing games (RPGs) that incorporates shooter gameplay and procedurally generated weapons and equipment.
“We have planned a looter shooter game since 2019 to introduce a mega-hit title in the global market,” said Joo Minseok, director of The First Descendant of Nexon Games Co., a unit of Nexon Co.
The new game minimizes the pay-to-win feature, the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give players an advantage over others who do not spend money. It has some items for sale for real money, but mostly to adorn characters, according to the developer.
Nexon Co. aims to increase users by emphasizing that they do not need to spend money on the game.
(Graphics by Dongbeom Yun with The First Descendant screenshot provided by Nexon)
DNF MOBILE
The company also enjoyed the success of other titles such as Dungeon & Fighter Mobile (DnF Mobile).
DnF Mobile introduced in China on May 21 by Tencent Holding Inc. ranked No. 2 in the world’s best-selling app by revenue last month after TikTok, beating YouTube and Roblox.
The mobile version of the arcade-type belt-scrolling action game mixed with RPG elements and an epic storyline was estimated to have already generated revenue of nearly 1 trillion won as Chinese game media GameLook reported its sales exceeded 5 billion yuan ($687.6 million) last month.
Such successes powered the share prices of Nexon Co. and Nexon Games. The parent’s stock prices have risen 19.2% so far this year on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while the subsidiary’s share prices have gained 19.5% in South Korea’s tech-heavy Kosdaq market.
Dungeon & Fighter Mobile (File photo, courtesy of Nexon)
By Ju-Hyun Lee
deep@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.
