News from the grapevine is that, according to a translated report by The Korea Herald, NXC Chairman (The holding company of Nexon Japan and Korea) is reportedly trying to sell off their entire 98.64% controlling stake of the company to willing buyers which would include a 47.02% stake within Nexon Japan.

This means that if they were to receive a likely offer from other companies, the buyer would be able to almost essentially dictate how the company is run and operated. Given Disney’s ever-expanding conglomerate of IPs and resources, it is very likely that buying high profile companies in the gaming space is in the cards as well.

“By March, shortlisted in the Nexon bid were Kakao, MBK Partners with Netmarble, Tencent, Bain Capital and an undisclosed foreign establishment.”

The Korean Herald

Although it seems like Disney is facing stiff competition with other buyers such as Kakao (Korean publisher of Black Dessert Online and PUBG) and the ever famous (or infamous to put it into perspective) Tencent Games of China.

The article we referenced also seem to make a note on why it’s chairman, Kim Jung-ju, is more likely to sell his company to Disney:

“What I envy the most about Disney is that they do not force money out of kids … (consumers) gladly pay Disney. Nexon has a long way to go. Some people hate Nexon to death,”

“Play” 2015, Via The Korean Herald

It seems to me that its chairman hopes that the buyout would restore, or at least bring back some good rep for the company over its business practices over the years.

Nexon is no stranger to the free-to-play concept where it is basically popularized this particular subsection of gaming by itself. The term “Pay2Win” comes into mind as the more common way to denote these games where it is required to pay to stay competitive (and often in huge amounts of real-money upgrades).

Disney MMO, anyone?

I think that you could take this as a sign of Disney stepping it up in the gaming space if this deal were to go through; in the MMO genre of games at least.

With Disney buying out Fox, they would have a few content-rich IPs to play with an idea of an MMO. Namely things like Terminator and Alien comes to mind where there is already a bevy of rich lore and backstory for them to explore into making it an MMO; perhaps playing as a confederate marine in an Alien space MMO or as a soldier of the resistance trying to stop Arnold Schwarzenegger from destroying the last bastion of humanity.

The possibilities seem endless; A Kingdom Hearts MMO is another example, or perhaps we will also see another content revival for Star Wars: The Old Republic now that there may be many more MMO developers on board that is owned by Disney. You get the idea.

I can’t wait to see what this brings now that Disney is actively pursuing and interest in the gaming front by themselves instead of almost none at all. I hope that this means better content and quality control from Disney’s part unlike what we’ve seen with EA and the Star Wars license where EA was basically free to do what it wants.

Via GameInformer & The Korean Herald

Chia is the horse-author from the far flung year of 2153. While not grazing on grass pastures or reviewing old time-y games and technology from the early 21st century pretending to not know what comes next (as to not disturb the space-time continuum), he can be seen exchanging vast quantities of Earth currency for parts needed to fix his damaged space ship.