Failing profits have forced South Korean gaming company Nexon to reorganize its business structure. The move, according to the company, is their attempt to increase employee enthusiasm amidst the failure of a bid to sell the company.
According to Nexon’s CEO, Lee Jung-Hun, the company is set to determine unpromising game developments, seemingly to reduce potentially unprofitable costs. The CEO asked employees to help measure the potential of their products, assuring them that they will be fair in grading ongoing projects.
Projects, according to him, that have low potential may be suspended, while those that are promising will be given more focus.
Representatives from the company, however, stressed that they would not lay off employees. The statement was made in response to fears of a mass layoff due to low profits. “We are preparing a safety net,” Lee said as the company’s way of preventing such layoff.
Another strategy the company hopes to help re-establish the company was their recruitment of Hur Min as a third-party adviser. Hur Min was the developer of the famous “Dungeon Fighter Online” game and founder of WeMakePrice, a South Korean eCommerce company.
Min also founded Neople, the company that owns the rights to “Dungeon Fighter Online.” He sold Neople to Nexon in 2008, resulting to “Dungeon Fighter Online” becoming Nexon’s flagship game.
“We will start from square one as management believes that Nexon will not be able to release more successful intellectual properties if we stick to the current way of working,” Lee Jung-Hun said.
One of the first projects to be axed was the much-awaited Peria Chronicles. After eight years of development, Nexon canceled the game because it is “not expected to satisfy users.”
