Nexon's Q3 2021 Is Down From Pandemic-fueled 2020 Boost

As is usually the case with all its financial reports, Nexon was happy with its Q3 2021 results, which saw the developer and publisher "building momentum, strengthening our core business and preparing to launch several catalysts in 2022," according to President and CEO Owen Mahoney.

That doesn't mean everything was up in the quarter; in fact, Q3 2021's revenue was down 4% from the record set in Q3 2020 -- not surprising, considering the "pandemic boost" most video game companies saw in the previous year. Mobile revenue, in particular, took a big hit, dropping 44% year-over-year. To make up for that "PC revenues exceeded the expected range and mobile revenues came within the expected range" -- we were planning to have a down quarter, you see?

Most of the rest of the financials follow the usual trends we've seen from Nexon -- up here, down there, planning for a good Q4, etc. But perhaps the most surprising nugget of info is some slightly more tangible info about what Patrick Söderlund's Embark Studios is up to. You might recall that Nexon acquired the former EA executive's Swedish studio two years ago, but we've heard little from the studio apart from a few high-level dev blogs like this one, that described its product as "a cooperative free-to-play action game set in a distant future."

The financial report includes pieces of art from three of "Embark's New Games In Development." These fall under the temporary titles of "Codename: Pioneer," "Codename: Discovery," and something just called "Creative Platform." In addition to the co-op F2P action game, we also know that Embark is working on a PvP shooter, described on the company's site as "a concept that leans heavily into team-based gameplay and puts dynamism, physicality, and destruction front and center." I'd guess that's Discovery, while the earlier announced game is Pioneer.

As for the company's "Creative Platform," Embark's talked about that from time to time as well, with the previously linked blog piece comparing it to Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite creative mode, and Rust. That blog was from late 2020, and there have been a slew of player-generated content games to show up since then, many utilizing some form of blockchain or NFTs. We haven't heard a proper update from Embark since February, but we'd guess that some end-of-year update could be in the cards over the next few weeks.

You can view Nexon's financials via the company's investor relations page.