By Yoon Sung-won
An increasing number of Korean game companies are rushing toward the lucrative e-sports platform business to boost their sales and raise customer awareness of their services.
“A game company can expect to extend the boundaries and lifespan of a game by successfully making its own e-sports platform,” a game industry source said Tuesday.
Such moves are expected to gain momentum as the global e-sports industry is expanding.
The global market size stood at $500 million last year, up from $325 million in 2015, and is expected to reach $1.1 billion in 2019. The number of consumers in the global e-sports market was 1.31 billion last year, up from 715 million in 2013, according to Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency.
Smilegate acquired the copyright for the World Cyber Games (WCG) from Samsung Electronics last month. “We believe that the WCG is the best brand for us to build a new digital entertainment business,” a Smilegate official said.
The WCG is the world’s largest video game competition. It started with a challenge competition in 2000 and continued until the last event in Kunshan, China, in 2013.
Smilegate became one of the largest Korean game companies after its shooter “CrossFire” succeeded in China in the late 2000s. The game was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in September 2010 when it had more than 2 million users playing it simultaneously.
According to data from game industry researcher SuperData Research, “CrossFire” posted $1.1 billion in sales in 2015, which is No. 3 worldwide.
Smilegate has run the CrossFire Pro League (CFPL) in China, which is the world’s largest professional e-sports league for the game. A total of 450 million won in prize money is up for grabs for the 10th season that started last month.
Expectations are that the company will expand the e-sport boundary for “CrossFire” globally in cooperation with its Chinese partner Tencent by tapping into the WCG business.
In February, Actoz Soft pledged to expand its e-sport business. It started by renaming its subsidiary Eyedentity Entertainment from Eyedentity Mobile, March 31.
“We plan to focus on e-sports as our new business to foster Eyedentity Entertainment as a global brand,” CEO Guo Haibin said.
Other companies are concentrating on specific games to expand their e-sports business.
Netmarble Games said it will enter mobile e-sports by launching a mobile strategy game “Penta Storm” in June. Netmarble said it plans to create both professional and non-professional leagues for the game, striving to vitalize the mobile e-sports market.
“Penta Storm” originates from Tencent’s “King of Glory.” The Chinese version attracted 50 million daily users in the country in January.
Com2uS updated a new global player-versus-player mode named “World Arena” for its megahit mobile game “Summoners War: Sky Arena,” March 17. In this mode, users can duel with each other in real-time on a global server.
Launched in April 2014, “Summoners War” has generated 1 trillion won in cumulative sales as of last month.
The mobile game company also held an offline global e-sports event in Seoul, March 20.
“We have confirmed the potential of the game in the e-sports arena,” a Com2uS official said. “We will push to launch a mobile e-sports competition for the game through the World Arena mode.”