Even if you’re not under the age of 10, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about Club Penguin, which is reported to have over 12 million user accounts. After being bought by the Walt Disney Company for the hefty sum of 350 million dollars, such lucrative success has not gone unnoticed and competitors are eagerly planning ways to capture this audience.

I had an opportunity to attend a session at Austin GDC given by Min Kim, Vice President of Nexon. He eyes the generation of growing gamers born during the dot com bubble, as he believes that these players – one of Club Penguin’s core audiences – will eagerly pay for digital items. It’s no secret that MapleStory has a large community, and we’ve already seen its similarities with Club Penguin. But as kids become teenagers, the game genres they are likely to play will change with them.

It is clear that MMOGs grow and evolve with technology. As time passes, the number of 2D games is also likely to decrease. If you take a quick look at any of the new and upcoming games, they are mostly 3D games with better graphics than industry leader World of Warcraft. Will players be tempted to turn back to outdated 2D games like MapleStory when a slew of visually stunning 3D games beckon for their attention left and right? The answer is probably no.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: we all know MapleStory sucks and many teens nowadays love 3D games. If Nexon puts over 50% of their manpower on MapleStory, where will that leave them?