Producers try to make visual novel game success

Jin Seung-ho, left, a game producer at Altair, and Kim Seok-joo, a game product manager at 4:33 Creative Lab, speak during an interview at Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of 4:33 Creative Lab

By Yoon Sung-won

In the highly-competitive Korean mobile content market, profitability is often on the top of any list for developers to consider in designing and producing a service.

Jin Seung-ho and Kim Seok-joo at Korean game company, 4:33 Creative Lab, said their goal instead is to provide unorthodox entertainment.

As a game producer and product manager, Jin and Kim have cooperated for the production and management of the mobile adventure game, titled “City of Mist 2” which will be launched on Oct. 9.

“We understand that some genres are not the mainstream in the Korean game scene. But at the same time, we know that there are many who have shown love and enthusiasm for the content we produce. Our goal is to seek new ways to provide more enjoyable content for them,” said Jin, a producer at 4:33 Creative Lab’s game development partner company Altair, in an interview with The Korea Times.

City of Mist 2 is a prequel to a game of the same name which was released in July last year. The series can be categorized as a visual novel, a type of interactive fiction which consists of narration accompanied by static illustrations.

The genre originated in Japan and enjoyed popularity there. It has not been so successful in the Korean mobile game market, however, where action-oriented titles dominate.

Released amid such a harsh environment, the City of Mist saw favorable responses from Korean users on the back of its artistic illustrations and vivid storyline.

Still, it did not help the company make a significant profit.

In an effort to help our users focus on the content itself, the product manager said the latest title adopted a different payment system which is uncommon in the Korean mobile game market.

“We tried to get rid of all the things that can distract users from enjoying the content. Now users can choose from purchasing each episode or just register for a free pass for a certain period of time to play the content,” Kim said.

“We brought more voice actors and actresses and worked with popular singer-songwriter Yoon Jong-shin for the title. All these efforts may not lead us to more profit. But we are sure it will raise the awareness of the genre here and bring more talented developers to produce unorthodox and experimental titles like the City of Mist series,” he said.

Jin added, “With the recent prequel title, we tried to tell the users about the many untold stories of the previous game. It’s all thanks to the loyal fans who gave us both support and criticism, which helped us a lot. We hope our fans will find the new title entertaining and support us in continuing our efforts to raise the popularity of this genre,” he said.