Nexon America’s Min Kim: Bridging the East-West Divide, and Aiming for a Younger Demographic

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Steve sits down with Min Kim and Mike Crouch from Nexon America to discuss the company's free-to-play titles, as well as the differences in gamer cultures between the East and the West.

Min Kim: Well, I hate the word "casual" because that's actually put us in a box, where we'll meet up with the press and they'll say, "Oh, they're a casual game developer."

But there are a lot of definitions about what casual means. Like one example I give is Texas Hold'Em. If I'm playing with you guys and we're playing Texas Hold'Em at my house and I've got a $20 buy-in, that's a very casual experience.

You go to the casinos, where you're playing at the World Series of Poker and you put $10,000 down, it's not casual anymore. It's extremely hardcore even though it's the same game. [laughs]

I think the word "casual" just makes it more difficult, but I do think that players are looking for different experiences and I think it's our job in the industry to basically just cater to them all and not limit it.

I feel like we've been limiting the market greatly. Games like Dungeon Fighter, you look at it, it looks very casual but I don't like to use the word "casual." I like to use the word "approachable."

So if you're looking over my shoulder and I'm playing Dungeon Fighter online, that game, I think, is the type of game where your friend who had never seen it before might say, "Hey, move over, I want to try," because it looks like an arcade game, versus something that is very complex.