Webzen: Leaders in Free to Play

ArticlesBy Gamersbook on Jul 178560

In this short article we present the history of a Korean company; Webzen which offers three highly popular MMORPGs in a free to play model.

Webzen

In recent times there has been a lot of talk of the free to play model for online games. These discussions range from how these games should be designed, what should be offered to players for free and what as paying features, but for game designers and their investors, the most important question is; does this model bring much needed profit?

When we talk about Free to play we know there are many games that fit this profile.  Most of these games are browser based, but here we will concentrate on real games, with modern 3D graphics, and probably rich player environment where players can enjoy co-operative or player versus player types of play.

Many companies are currently experimenting with  free to play models. Either they offer one or two games in this new model, but retain most of their products on the classical pay to play model, or offer some aspects of the game free and other available only to the paying players.  
The company that really stands out in bringing most, or better to say, all products into the free to play model is the Korean developer and publisher Webzen. As a publisher Webzen currently offers players all over world three of it’s MMORPGs; MU Online, Archlord and Soul of the Ultimative Nation (or, S.U.N)  in a free to play system, and it appears that its fourth MMORPG R2 Online, currently in beta, will also be a free to play game.

Here we are going to show a short history of Webzen and the story of their most popular games that are available to the western market.

The story of Webzen begins in 2000 when the company was founded. With its first game, MU Online, first released for the market of Korea in 2001, Webzen already made history by publishing the first completely 3d massively multiplayer online role playing game.
MU Online itself is a very combat based MMORPG in a hybrid fantasy-medieval setting happening on the imaginary  continent of MU (hence the strange name). The game’s strong emphasis on PVP combat with outlaws and heroes system had most certainly helped it gain, and retain popularity.

Already that same year MU Online won accolades at the Korea Game Awards 2001 including a special award for graphics, which is a special achievement regarding that MMOs at that time almost exclusively had 2D graphics. The game owns much of its success for being one of the first MMOs to enter a much regulated and closed Chinese market already in 2003. This success of MU Online launched Webzen among the big companies that in 2003 already offered its shares at the KOSDAQ and later that year at the NASDAQ stock markets. MU Online became globally available on October 6 2003.

While MU Online continued to gain popularity, eventually reaching a 10 million player base, Webzen initiated the development of new games. Their next game; Soul Of The Ultimative Nation (or shortened; S.U.N) another MMORPG with a distinctive almost console action RPG style of play,  was released in a open beta test in Korea in 2006 and gained great praise from players. Thanks to the success of MU Online, and the promising aspects of the new game, S.U.N won the Most Expected Game Prize at China Joy, a digital entertainment expo held in China.

Same year, commercialized service for S.U.N was started in Korea as well to their third game R2 – another MMORPG.

In 2009 Webzen acquired the rights from Codmasters for another MMORPG; Archlord. This game was known for its troubled start and upon its release in 2005 in Korea and 2006 in North America and Europe gained a lot of negative  reviews due to bad controls. But with updates and release of expansion packs the game improved and gained a steady player base especially after turning into a free to play model from 2007.

In 2009 Webzen launched a global based service to bring a all their games under one word wide service, and bringing all four of their worldwide games on the same free to play model. It is with this system that Webzen finally became a true MMORPG worldwide giant and an important example in demonstrating the usage of the free to play model.

So far Webzen is doing just fine with its four free to play MMORPG’s available globally and has three upcoming games; Continent of the Night, another action MMORPG and Battle Territory; Battery, a massive multiplayer first person shooter. If even these two games retain Webzen's tradition of the free to play model it will be a true confirmation that the free to play model really works and that publishers can base all of their products on this new but already popular model of games  distribution.

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