Fantage
Fantage was a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by Fantage Inc. The game featured a customizable cartoon avatar, called a "Fantagian", that users can customize with items ranging from hair to clothing and accessories. Fantage was released to the general public on March 17, 2008, and had since expanded into a large online community— the game had over 16 million registered users by January 2012 and over 30 million by December 2014. The game was designed for the ages of 6 to 16. According to its founders, Fantage was focused on child safety, made possible by a three-tiered safety system. This safety system had several features, such as professional chat moderation, automatic word filtering, an in-game user reporting system, and varying chat options for parents. On May 17, 2018, Fantage announced that the game would shut down on June 30, 2018. At 12:36 am EDT on July 1, 2018, Fantage closed down its servers to all users. History According to Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Fantage began development after the founders of the game, David Hwang and Peter Bae, created their company in January 2007, and the game was initially an educational math website until they received negative reception from a focus group of kids. A closed beta version of the game was available on October 29, 2007, which granted beta testers full access to features normally available through a paid membership, and the game went open beta on January 1, 2008. The game eventually released on March 17, 2008, where beta testers were gifted with a month of free membership, 1,000 Stars, and exclusive Beta Tester hair items, while new members received two weeks of free membership. In 2009–2010, Fantage received strategic investments from Nexon. These investments allowed Fantage to hire additional designers and key developers. The resulting site expansion and quality enhancement led to swift growth. In less than four months, from November 2009 to February 2010, Fantage completed the entire site renewal, which involved upgrades of more than thirty mini-games. Within a year, the user base grew from 3 million to 7.7 million registered users. Fantage developed and employed its own real time mass data processing technology, which enables 20 million users to access the site without any inconvenience. This database and server side program was created by Byungsoo Son, Frank Kim, Sungwon Um, and Dongpyo Lee, who were all key developers for the game. Fantage Inc. was headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey and run by Nexon. Overseas On December 14, 2009, it was reported on a Japanese online gaming news site, Game Watch, that Nexon was releasing Fantage in Japan in February 2010. The game was eventually released on February 10, 2010, as , which was nicknamed "Fantage Japan" by players outside of Japan. As Nexon of Japan owned this version of the game, a Nexon Japan ID was required to create an account and to log in, and Nexon Points were