Maple Story
Maple Story is a side scrolling online world where you can interact with a
community of players in any number of colorful worlds.
Entry is free but if you want to clothe your character in spiffier rags, get weapons,
change your appearance, even get facelifts – you have to buy all these virtual goods and
services (hard to imagine facelifts for anime characters}.
Selling script is how Korean based Nexon keeps the community going.
At this point they claim 50 million users internationally and that’s a lot more
than World of Warcraft.
It is basically an RPG and players can chat, form alliances, battle dragons and play mini-games – some even get married.
The Cash Shop is where you exchange real money, $1.00 is equal to 1,000 units in Nexon Cash.
Credit cards or Pay Pal work, and for the younger set – Target has gift cards.
Mothers who are concerned about the early use of credit cards may want to pass this one up for their kids.
While it starts out free, it is hard with peer pressure to make do with the basic stuff.
In the industry, it is called monetization – expect to see more of it.
Reviewed by: Editor - 09/07
Ages: Not Rated