Posts Tagged ‘Baseball’

Nexon announces partnership with 2K Sports to produce Baseball Sim

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

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.”

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Challenge Games raises $10 Million in Series B funding

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Love is in the air in Austin.  Or at least lots of investment cash.  Challenge Online Games of Austin, Texas has recently raised $10M in series B funding.  Globespan Capital Partners spearheaded the investment, with Sequoia Capital also contributing.

Challenge Online Games, Inc. currently has two free-to-play titles; Duels and Baseball Boss.  These titles combine the collectability and trading associated with collectible card games and sports cards with the popular MMORPG format.  Both games also feature an ease of access of community applications.  Challenge Games’ Duels facebook application was the first MMORPG to be fully integreated directly with facebook.  Duels and Baseball Boss differ from traditional MMORPGs in their play style: Instead of hours and hours of marathon play sessions, both titles are designed to be played in asynchronous, short-form turns.  Meaning, each round can be played in 5-15 minute intervals, without a player feeling that they are missing out on any ongoing action.  This play format also facilitates long distance and ‘when I have time’  play vs. players from across the street or around the world.

“Challenge Games is addressing a real need in the market,” said Eugene Yoo, Vice President at Globespan Capital Partners. “Short form, free-to-play, web-based games have the potential to pull new consumers into the category. And the engaging gameplay of their titles appeals to the active casual and hardcore gamer as well.”

“We believe this funding further demonstrates that we are bringing innovation and value to the gaming industry,” said Andrew Busey, founder and CEO of Challenge Online Games. “This funding will help us accelerate the growth of our business through the development of new games, explore partnership opportunities and potentially acquisitions.”

Again, both titles are free-to-play.  Challenge Games also offers VIP memberships via subscription fees, which provide players additional benefits including the ability to purchase special and unique items and cards to enhance the overall experience.

Challenge games was founded by veteran entrepreneur and gamer, Andrew Busey.  Busey is the author of Secrets of the MUD Wizards, was instrumental in the development of Mosaic; creating iChat, and building WebCenter.  Prior to Challenge Games, Busey co-founded Pluck which enables social media on top tier media outlets including TheStreet.com, USA Today, and Reuters.

For more on Challenge Games, visit them at: www.challengegames.com

For more on Globespan Capital Partners visit them at: www.globespancapital.com

For more on Sequoia Capital visit them at: www.sequoiacap.com

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