The developers of Maple Story introduced the Cash Shop to generate revenue. This is a virtual shop where players can buy items using real money. The items sold in the Cash Shop include clothing items, appearance-changing coupons, pets, and usable items that provide special bonuses, such as a bonus in experience gain.

 

     Most Cash Shop items expire after a certain period of time. The Global Cash Shop markets items for two virtual currencies: Nexon Cash (NX Cash), and "Maple Points". NX Cash is purchased outside of MapleStory through the Maple Story web site. Maple Points, however, can be earned through special events. Many people take advantage of the fact that people are unable to pay for Nexon Cash and are accepting items and Mesos to trade for Nexon Cash.

 

    People are also attracting people using referral sites that give PayPal money as a reward for doing offers. However, such transactions are deemed illegal and any user involved in such a transaction may be banned if caught by a Game Master. On 23 June 2006, GlobalMS announced that people had been abusing the Nexon Cash "gifting" feature, and ultimately decided to disable the feature indefinitely.The reason GlobalMS has given for this decision is that many people have been fraudulent towards PayPal and Wizet itself. In MapleSEA's case, in addition to credit card payment (through PayPal), it has also released Prepaid cards.

 

    As for Global MS, Prepaid cash-value cards, or "Nexon Cards", are now released. The Nexon prepaid cash cards are currently available in nationwide (US) Target stores. They are in the Music Card Section. An event has been added, named "Spot On" to introduce the partnership. Completing the quest involves talking to two NPCs who give information about the sale of cash cards.