Nexon said the revenue shortfall from a full refund for its popular mobile game "Maple Raising" will reach 14 billion yen (about 130 billion won).
According to Nexon's Japan subsidiary on the 13th, the company disclosed the refund scale and the impact of the refund measure on earnings in a letter shared with investors along with its results the previous day. In the shareholder letter, Nexon said, "We reflected the expected impact of the refund measure in last year's fourth-quarter results and this year's first-quarter outlook."
Due to this situation, fourth-quarter revenue last year decreased by about 9 billion yen (about 84 billion won) and operating profit by about 4 billion yen (about 37.7 billion won). Uemura Shiro, Nexon chief financial officer (CFO), said at an earnings conference call on the 12th that "in the first quarter of this year, (due to the refund measure) an additional decrease of about 5 billion yen in revenue and about 3 billion yen in operating profit is expected."
Earlier, Nexon said it decided to fully refund the amounts users paid since the game's launch in connection with a controversy over alleged manipulation of probability in "Maple Raising." This is the first time since its founding that Nexon has decided on a "full refund" due to an operational controversy. The refund covers all items purchased in-game by users from Nov. 6 last year, when "Maple Raising" was released, through today.
Chief Executive Lee Jeong-heon also said on the conference call, "In the process of maintaining and growing the game over many years, we realized that building and maintaining the trust of the player community is a fundamental principle of our operations," adding, "This refund measure is a heavy burden, but we believe it is essential to maintaining trust in our game and our company."
Despite the revenue decline from the full refund measure, Nexon projected that MapleStory franchise revenue will grow 30% year over year in the first quarter, helped by the contribution of "Maple Raising." "Maple Raising" is a game co-developed by Nexon and Able Games, and since its release in November last year it has continued its success, maintaining the No. 1 spot in sales for a long period on Korea's two major app markets.