AI wording and slightly shallow but it is what it is (hard to fact-check Korean scandals)
[h1]Who's Actually Responsible for Nexon's Repeated Trust Failures?[/h1]
Patrick Söderlund joined Nexon as Executive Chairman in February 2026. His brief covers creative direction and long‑term strategy. He had been in post for about five months when the Blue Archive 5.5 controversy erupted – not long enough to be the architect of the decisions that caused it.
[b]The two executives with the real track record have been at Nexon for years.[/b]
[h2]Shiro Uemura – CFO since 2015[/h2]
Under his financial watch:
[list]
[*] [b]2018[/b] – Nexon fined [b]₩939 million[/b] for lying about loot box odds in [i]Sudden Attack[/i].
[*] [b]2024[/b] – Nexon fined [b]₩11.6 billion[/b] (the largest ever for this type of fraud) for manipulating [i]MapleStory[/i] Cube probabilities over nearly a decade. A separate consumer settlement added another [b]₩1.1 billion[/b].
[/list]
Total fines and settlements from Uemura's tenure: [b]~₩13.6 billion[/b].
[h2]Junghun Lee – CEO since March 2024[/h2]
Lee isn't personally writing code or setting loot box probabilities. He's not the one who forgot to test the [i]Raising Maple[/i] ability options. But he is the CEO of a company that keeps having the same kinds of problems, and he is the one who ultimately signs off on business decisions that affect players.
He walked into a company with a long history of trust failures. So far, the pattern hasn't changed under his leadership.
[list]
[*] [b]January 2026[/b] – [i]Raising Maple[/i] had a bug that made top‑tier paid items literally impossible to obtain (0% chance). Support dismissed complaints, then quietly patched it. Nexon later admitted management found out late, issued full refunds, and gave 200% compensation.
[*] [b]March 2026[/b] – Following the fallout, Nexon announced that Lee's 2025 performance incentive was [b]cut by 50%[/b]. The company stated the cut was made "to put into practice a sense of responsibility among key executives and sincerity toward restoring user trust". The responsible manager resigned. The refunds cost Nexon roughly [b]140 billion yen[/b] in lost revenue across Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.
[/list]
Whether he can't change the culture, won't change it, or simply hasn't had enough time yet – only time will tell. But the responsibility for what happens on his watch is his. That's what the job means.
[h2]What does this have to do with Blue Archive 5.5?[/h2]
The 5.5 monetisation change was a [b]business decision[/b] – and business decisions go through the CEO (operations) and the CFO (finance). Söderlund's creative‑strategy role is not directly involved in that process.
[b]The pattern is consistent:[/b] Uemura and Lee have been at the centre of repeated consumer‑trust failures for years. Söderlund is new and doesn't make those calls. The responsibility sits with the two executives who have been running the numbers and signing off on strategy all along.
