Originally developed by Wizet- a South Korean company in 2003, MapleStory is a 2D, online, free-to-play, multiplayer, role-playing game, now published and available in multiple countries and regions by various companies like Nexon and AsiaSoft for players to travel the “Maple World”, defeat monsters, and develop their characters’ skills and abilities while looking their absolute cutest by customizing their avatars according to the likes of their own from the array of options available to them in the game.

Taken over by Nexon in 2006, the game has only constantly continued to grow as the number of registered worldwide users in 2020 is over 22 times that of the number of users in 2011, which was a little over 8 million users. It was also among the top ten MMOs by worldwide revenue as of 2014. Between 2013 and 2017, the game had grossed over $1.18 billion and as of 2020, it has grossed over $3 billion worldwide in lifetime revenue.

MapleStory: The Successful Journey of 15 Years

However, over the years, the game has gone through countless updates to keep in touch with its growing audience and current trends. It focuses more on the solo aspects of the game now rather than the social aspect back in 2007 when users would log into the game only to roam around mindlessly and chat with other players.

At present, there are multiple versions of the game available for different platforms like that of the Nintendo DS in 2010, a mobile application released for iOS and Android in 2018, and even a public beta version of “MapleStory Adventures” which was released as an adaptation for the Facebook gaming format in 2011, which unfortunately has been discontinued as of 2013.

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MapleStory’s popularity has seen nothing short of a steady rise since its initiation and will continue to advance as a people’s favorite, with even the likes of TIME’s 2020 Entertainer of the Year- global pop band BTS teaming up with Nexon to create and develop exclusive content for both MapleStory and its mobile equivalent, Maplestory M.

You can play MapleSory right now here.