Nexon appears to have suspended development of MMORPG Peria Chronicles, which began beta testing in Korea this past spring.
According to Korean news website InvenGlobal, Nexon announced the bad news following multiple tests when it determined the game “could not satisfy the user” and would be canceled. The website claims Nexon and Neople had sunk over ₩10B (over $8M US) into the title. We’re treating this as a rumor until publicly confirmed by Nexon, but Inven is reputable.
Peria was very much anticipated within the MMORPG community over the last few years, though rumors leaking out of the beta suggested the beta was a bit of a disappointment.
Nexon appears to be in the midst of a major reorganization involving some slash-and-burn following a failure of its owners to sell it earlier this year: It lost stock value, suffered financially, merged mobile and PC businesses, let contracts run out, and worst of all, laid off large swathes of its overseas employees. Rumors that it was dropping some in-dev MMOs now seem to have been proven true.
Just this morning, MMO Culture reported that Nexon’s employee union has applied and been granted a permit to conduct a demonstration in front of Nexon’s Seoul HQ next week on September 3rd to agitate for better communication regarding local job security, though so far Nexon’s laid off only western workers.
