Audition Online

Audition Online (Korean: 오디션 온라인), also known as X-BEAT in Japan and popularly called AyoDance in Indonesia, is a free-to-play multiplayer online casual Rhythm game produced by T3 Entertainment. It was originally released in South Korea in 2004 and has been localized by various publishers around the world. Audition Online is free to play, but earns revenue by selling virtual items such as clothes for the player's avatar.

In the game, players have an avatar/dancer (which there are hundreds of customization options from hair, clothes, accessories, and other design options for their avatar. Also players are free to have alternate and secondary dancers/accounts), and they compete in dance battles, against other players live, to popular Pop music songs, (in addition to original Audition exclusive songs), with the goal being the player must correctly input arrow commands, come up with their own freestyle rhythm commands, match sound effects in timing, or copy verbal dance commands from an NPC, (depending on Audition's many different game modes.) The better a player performs during a song, the more their avatar levels/ranks up, and the more in game currency they get, to better customize their avatar (in addition to micro-transaction/virtual exclusive items to customize the avatar). Players can also engage in side non gameplay, networking features (such as forming friendships, and dance crews, with other players, and even having virtual relationships/weddings/marriages with others players.) Audition acts as an alternative fusion to Dance Dance Revolution and DJMax, also combining Life simulation elements as well.

The North American/United States distribution of Audition, was published in early 2007, by Los Angeles based company Nexon USA. Promotional material, included a commercial which was very frequently played on family networks such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, featured a young woman watching a music video on television, ("With Love", by Hilary Duff), and putting herself "in the Audition game", with other players, and an announcer in which he tells the viewers to "get into Audition". The release sparked controversy, as the music selection consisted of vulgar/inappropriate songs, lack of game updates/maintenance, and hackers using cheats during gameplay, and making their avatars deformed/glitched. Because of these issues Nexon was pressed to rectify, ownership was transferred years later to Orange County, California based company Redbana, to where issues under Redbana's control were fixed. However, due to development issues, in 2023, Redbana disconnected the Audition servers. Two unofficial fan servers later launched; one launched in 2023 called "Audition Galaxy",, and another launched in January 2024, called "Audition Nexus".