NEXON, the country’s top game company, said Thursday it will merge with its affiliate NEXON Mobile in a bid to strengthen its mobile platform.

The two firms signed an agreement for the merger on Thursday and it is expected to be completed by April, according to NEXON officials.

NEXON Mobile, established in September 2001, is known for launching several popular games such as MapleStory and KartRider Rush.

“The measure was put in place to focus on the growth of the mobile business with NEXON’s intellectual property, competitiveness of global businesses and the infrastructure,” said its chief executive Seo Min.

“Considering that the highly growing platforms in the worldwide gaming industry are online games and mobile, mobile is projected to become a core portion of our business. This is why we plan to unify our mobile organization and make more active use of NEXON’s IP and give more weight to overseas projects.”

In the past, only two different departments existed within NEXON involving mobile games ― one for social network games and another for new mobile game development ― but this is expected to be transformed into a single new project unit following the merger, said a NEXON official.

As a follow-up measure, NEXON is moving to release about 10 new smartphone games this year, the official added.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)