Nexon Calls 2021 A Year For "Investing In Growth," Will Be "Implementing Growth" In 2022.
Full-year revenue down 6%, Bitcoin investment somehow has a "revaluation gain."
In a break with tradition, Nexon didn't label its most recent quarter's financials as the "best ever." In fact, revenues for Q4 2021 were down 18% from Q4 2020 and total-year figures were down 6%, to ¥274.5 billion, or $229 million. Some of that decline could be attributed to the buff that pretty much all game developers had to their revenue in 2020. That was noted in the Q3 results as well, though you'd have to think that investors don't want to hear about all that. It always needs to be up, up, up!
Also noted in the Q4 results: "a revaluation gain of ¥1.2 billion due to movements in the market price of bitcoin." We're not sure how it managed to "gain," but in any case, "revaluation" sounds a lot better than "down 40%," which is what happened to Nexon's $100 million bitcoin investment earlier in the year.
Enough with the bad news -- there has to be something good to report, right? Mobile RPG Blue Archive launched in Q4 and helped prop up revenue, keeping the quarter from looking like a total disaster, and it actually led to the best revenue in a year in North America and Europe. MapleStory and MapleStory M revenue also shot up by double-digit percentage points year-over-year in several regions.
Nexon labeled 2021 as a year for "Investing in Growth," while 2022 will be a year for "Implementing Growth," with the "Biggest year of new releases in Nexon's history," including Mobile Dungeon&Fighter in Korea on March 24, KartRider: Drift, ARC Raiders, and more. 2023 will see "Step-function Growth," featuring full-year releases for those games, as well as new titles from Embark Studios and Nexon Korea, and market and platform growth.
Embark's efforts, it should be noted, are billed as "Procedurally painting environments saves time and money -- frees developers to focus on creative work." That's under the "tech" label, while under the IP banner mentions the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar title that's coming to multiple platforms.
You can check out Nexon's financial report on its investors relations page.
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About the Author
Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.
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