Netmarble highlights competitive mobile games at G-Star 2016

A model in costume promotes Netmarble Games' mobile game "Lineage 2: Revolution" during the G-Star 2016 international gaming exhibition at BEXCO in Busan, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Yoon Sung-won

By Yoon Sung-won

BUSAN ― Netmarble Games took the nation's largest international gaming exhibition G-Star by force, showcasing its three new hotly anticipated mobile games ― "Lineage 2: Revolution," "Penta Storm" and "Star Wars: Force Arena," Thursday.

Korea's top mobile game company highlighted competitive multiplayer features of the new games to entertain a myriad of visitors at G-Star 2016, differentiating itself from other mobile game providers.

"Star Wars: Force Arena" is a mobile strategy game specifically made for competitive matches between players. Except for tutorial and training modes, in which users face an artificial intelligence to master basic tactics, they encounter other players through 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 matches.

In a demonstration version, users choose characters such as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Darth Vader to establish their own team and summon minions, call for cover fire and unleash skills under the goal of beating enemy leaders and destroying the enemy base.

The Star Wars game is under development by Netmarble Games' development subsidiary Netmarble Monster. Tapping into its experience in developing mobile role-playing games, the development studio has successfully launched "Marvel: Future Fight" based on Marvel's popular comic book characters. The company has expanded its partnership with Disney, which owns both the Marvel and Star Wars movie franchises.

"Considering the high interest for the intellectual properties of the Star Wars series in North America, we expect the new game will draw favorable responses in the region as Marvel: Future Fight did," a Netmarble Games official said.

Visitors to Netmarble Games' exhibition booths test-play mobile games during the G-Star 2016 international gaming exhibition at BEXCO in Busan, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Yoon Sung-won

Penta Storm is a mobile multiplayer strategy game developed by Timi Studio under China's game giant Tencent. Netmarble Games will release the game in the domestic market as a local publisher. It unveiled a playable demonstration version for the conference.

To meet the increasing demand for fast-paced and competitive games, the game has been designed to allow users to instantly join player-versus-player matches. In 3-on-3 or 5-on-5 matches, users are asked to come up with diverse and unexpected routes, tactics and skill combinations to attack the opponent team's base.

"Lineage 2: Revolution" is a mobile role-playing game based on the intellectual property of NCSOFT's namesake computer online game. It has brought legacy game systems from the NCSOFT game including its unique user community feature called "Lineage" as well as dynamic player killing. The mobile game also features a fortress combat mode in which up to 60 players can participate in a real-time battle.

Netmarble Games demonstrated "Lineage 2: Revolution" at G-Star 2016. Expectations are that the company will release the game here by the end of the year.
Amid rising calls from the industry in recent years to take part in the biggest festival for gamers here, Netmarble Games is participating in this year's event as a main sponsor.

Netmarble Games' boosted presence at the international gaming event has also drawn keen attention from investors as the company plans an initial public offering on the KOSPI early next year.

Netmarble was founded in November 2000 as an internet game portal service subsidiary of CJ Group. The company, which used to have more than 20 million internet game subscribers, has moved from the computer online sector to concentrate on mobile games, under the leadership of its board chairman Bang Jun-hyuk since 2011.

On the back of rapid penetration of smartphones and explosive growth of the mobile game market both domestically and abroad, Netmarble Games' business boomed and it posted over 1 trillion won in sales in 2015. It became the second Korean game company to reach 1 trillion won in annual sales following Nexon.

On the global stage, Netmarble Games generated 200.6 billion won in overseas sales, which is 56 percent of its 359.4 billion won total quarterly sales. It said "Seven Knights," "Everyone's Marble" and "Stone Age" led its global growth.

In particular, "Seven Knights" has recorded over 30 million cumulative downloads globally while "Stone Age" has become the top grossing game on both Google Play and Apple Appstore in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

"We has focused on regional localization and marketing strategies for overseas markets in the third quarter," Netmarble Games said. "We expect to see favorable results as we plan to roll out new blockbuster titles including Lineage 2: Revolution in the fourth quarter."

The company also made aggressive investments in fostering game development studios as subsidiaries. Currently it has more than 20 development subsidiaries and operates over 100 mobile games globally.

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