Netmarble CEO says China's mobile games 'threatening'

Models promote Netmarble Games’ new mobile game “Lineage 2: Revolution” during a media showcase at the Glad Hotel on Yeouido, southern Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of Netmarble Games

By Yoon Sung-won

Netmarble Games CEO Kwon Young-sik revealed his concerns over Chinese mobile game companies’ massive development capabilities, Thursday.

The head of the nation’s top mobile game firm said his Korean counterparts should push to streamline their business structures and concentrate on maintaining a competitive edge to overcome such a quantitative disadvantage.

“At Netmarble, we have repeatedly spoken of the sense of crisis over the rising mobile game development capabilities of Chinese firms. I think Chinese game providers are far more competitive in terms of human resources as a greater number of developers is being poured into the development process,” Netmarble Games CEO Kwon Young-sik said Thursday.

Citing his visit last month to the Chinese gaming industry fair China Joy 2016 in Shanghai, Kwon said, “I have seen many virtual reality-based games and quality MMO games by Chinese developers. I felt threatened and thought we need to improve our development systems to survive challenges by Chinese competitors.”

Kwon made the remark during Netmarble’s media showcase for its much-hyped new mobile game “Lineage 2: Revolution,” Thursday.

According to Netmarble, the game, which is based on NCSOFT’s intellectual property, can be categorized as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). In MMORPGs, a large number of users can interact through communication, battle and alliances in an open, real-time environment. For this reason, games in this genre have drawn much popularity from users in the computer online gaming sector.

Netmarble said it will run a closed beta test in September before officially rolling out the game in October here both for Google Android and Apple’s iOS systems. It will release the game in China under partnership with the country’s top game publisher Tencent in the first half of next year. The game will also be rolled out in Japan, North America and Europe afterwards.

“We will thoroughly localize the game aiming at the mobile gaming environment in major markets,” the company said.

Though “Lineage 2: Revolution” is one of Korea’s first mobile MMORPGs, it is expected to face tough challenges in China which Netmarble said will be the new game’s key marketplace.

In the China market, MMORPGs have already become popular. China’s mobile game firm Snail Games has recently released a mobile MMORPG named “Lineage 2: Blood Oath,” which also is based on the same intellectual property.

“I tested Blood Oath at China Joy and I thought it was a well-made MMORPG,” Kwon said. “But I also thought Blood Oath and Revolution have different approaches. Whereas Blood Oath is more based on numeric factors in the game, Revolution is focused on higher graphic quality and dynamic action.”

“Revolution” has been developed by Netmarble’s game development subsidiary Netmarble Neo, also led by Kwon. Netmarble Neo was established integrating three small studios under Netmarble’s umbrella in June last year.

“We have chosen Lineage 2 because we believed in solid global awareness of the original game,” Kwon said.

Netmarble said “Revolution” has inherited most of the gaming concepts of the original game such as the blood alliance and massive player-versus-player siege warfare systems while adding mobile games’ unique functions such as auto play.

But such an approach has also drawn concerns that it may not be able to offer a fresh gaming experience.

“Apart from the market success of such games, we need new and in-depth approaches to provide unprecedented entertainment for users, not an imitation of what they might have already experienced,” an industry source said.