Nexon Had A Good 2020, With MapleStory Nearly Doubling In Revenue

Stop me if you've heard this before, but Nexon is reporting "record-setting" quarterly and annual revenues for the final quarter of 2020 and the year as a whole. No, really, you've heard this before and before and before and before and before and before; it's more of a meme than a headline these days. Even the two years out of the last 10 when Nexon's revenue was down, it claimed to have increased year-over-year "on a constant currency basis."

To be fair, the company's not wrong. One highlight of the recent investor report is that MapleStory's revenue grew a whopping 98% in Korea, 134% in NA/EU, 12% in Japan, and 85% in other regions in 2020. Overall revenues for all of Nexon's games in 2020 were 293 billion Japanese yen (JPY), or about $2.8 billion USD, up 18% from the previous year.

Looking at Q4 2020 alone, things were good in comparison to Q4 2019, with mobile games, FIFA Online 4, and MapleStory in Korea leading the way. However, everything was down considerably when compared to Q3 2020, so the "record-breaking" nature of this Q4 is compared to every other Q4 past, and not all quarters -- a bit of creative headlining, I'd say. The company posted a net loss in the quarter of 29.8 billion JPY, or about $285 million USD, owing to "deferred tax liabilities on undistributed profits of an overseas subsidiary" and an "FX loss primarily on U.S. dollar-denominated cash deposits."

Still, Nexon's probably not complaining about its long-term outlook, with plans to offset revenue decreases in Dungeon&Fighter revenues in China with The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon and KartRider Rush+ in Korea -- and, of course, more MapleStory. A new Dungeon&Fighter game, DNF Duel, was announced in December, and if we're really lucky, maybe we'll hear something from Patrick Soderlund's Embark Studios in the coming year.

You can access Nexon's financial information via its investor relations site.