Lee Jung-heon (이정헌), chief executive of Nexon’s Japan unit, decided to cut by 50 percent the incentive allocated to him for 2025, taking responsibility for a controversy over probabilities in “Maple Growing” and the resulting large-scale refunds.

Nexon said on March 24 in an internal notice in Lee’s name that it takes the matter seriously and will fundamentally overhaul its work system and corporate culture, with user trust as the top principle in decision-making, to prevent a recurrence.

It added that it cut by 50 percent the 2025 incentive allocated to the chief executive of Nexon’s Japan unit to put into practice a sense of responsibility among key executives and sincerity toward restoring user trust.

Personnel measures were also taken. Nexon said the manager for the matter resigned, taking all responsibility, and that it completed disciplinary action against other related parties under internal rules. It earlier said a man surnamed Kang, who served as the first head of the Maple division, resigned after being removed from his post, and that Nexon Korea CEO Kang Dae-hyun (강대현) was appointed concurrently to the position.

Maple Growing is an idle mobile game that Nexon jointly developed with AbleGames and released in November last year. It ranked No. 1 in revenue on the two major app markets immediately after launch. This year, controversies over probabilities continued, prompting repeated apologies from the operators. Nexon decided to fully refund user payments from the time of launch through January.

The financial hit from the refund decision is significant. According to a letter to investors from Nexon’s Japan unit last month, the revenue decline from the matter totals 14 billion yen (about 130 billion won) combined for the fourth quarter last year and the first quarter this year.