Leading games producer 2K Sports and free-to-play originator Nexon Corporation have recently announced a partnership agreement that will see the development and publishing of a new online baseball game, produced exclusively for the South Korean market. As both parties have strategic motives, 2K Sports wins with expanding their offerings into the Asian market, while Nexon scores a win with a major developer with a standard of excellence, and a long proven track record of quality gaming.
“Nexon is a pioneer in the online gaming space and its track record of creating quality online titles makes them an ideal partner,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K in a statement. “We view this as a great opportunity to deliver an outstanding simulation game to a population that enjoys online gaming and has a passion for baseball. We look forward to reaching new audiences with our authentic simulation titles.”
Not only will 2K Sports be entering the market with an established partner, but this new development project will serve to further expand and enhance their existing sports lineup. Building upon their NBA 2K and MLB 2K franchises, this new versioning of a baseball title is expected to fall right in line with Nexon’s MO, presumably making the game free-to-play, with the now-standard microtransaction based monetization module.
“This partnership is an opportunity to demonstrate the scope of our development capabilities by creating a new type of online game,” said Min Suh, CEO of Nexon Corporation in a statement. “We’re confident that Visual Concepts’ (a 2K Sports studio) proven success in developing sports simulations coupled with our online gaming expertise will result in a new kind of baseball experience for Korean online gamers.”
And while Nexon has enjoyed tremendous success with their more “traditional” titles such as MapleStory and KartRider, Take-Two Asia president Hubert Larenaudie is quick to point out a market primed for baseball, “As Korea’s number one spectator sport with nearly six million fans in 2010, baseball has a massive untapped audience to whom we believe our game will appeal.”
Representatives from Double Fusion say that they’ve been working closely alongside 2K Sports developers to integrate the ads in the least obtrusive manner. Double Fusion says that they’re committed to delivering in-game advertising while still maintaining the contextual relevance and realism of ad placements at real world sporting venues.
