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| Visitors queue to play Kakao's mobile game "Friends Popcorn" during the G-Star 2016 international gaming exhibition at the BEXCO exhibition center in Busan, Friday. / Courtesy of Kakao |
Kakao accelerating rebound in mobile game business
By Yoon Sung-won
BUSAN ― This year's G-Star, Korea's largest international gaming exhibition, has shown that mobile games can offer substantial, entertaining exhibition content.
Despite the shrinking presence of blockbuster computer online games here, G-Star 2016 envisioned its breakthrough as a gaming convention by combining diverse mobile game showcases with virtual reality (VR) demonstrations and large-scale e-sports contests.
According to the Korea Internet Digital Entertainment Association (K-iDEA), Sunday, the cumulative number of visitors to the business-to-consumer (B2C) exhibitions reached 161,908 from Thursday to Saturday, up 6 percent from the same period last year.
The business-to-business (B2B) exhibition sector, which closed Saturday, drew 1,902 visitors, up 6.8 percent year-on-year.
Nexon Korea, in particular, continues to draw attention with dozens of new games this year, filling its 400 booths.
The nation's largest game company showcased 35 new games, including 28 titles for mobile devices. This is a record for a game company to present at G-Star.
At its B2C exhibition booths, Nexon has prepared demonstration corners for 19 out of 35 games where visitors queued for hours to play before their official releases.
Despite concerns that the gaming exhibition's overall quality might be undermined with companies hastily releasing games that were still far from completion, visitors expressed satisfaction with the exhibition.
"The games here are mostly entertaining and some of them were good enough to wait for a long time to test," said a collegian gamer at Nexon's booth. "It is also good that I can choose what I like from games in diverse genres."
Besides its much-hyped blockbuster mobile titles such as "Dungeon & Fighter: Spirit" and "Dark Avenger 3," Nexon also unveiled new types of mobile games not commonly seen in Korea.
"Lode Runner 1" by Nexon's development subsidiary Devcat Studio, is a remake of the namesake classic puzzle game. "After the End," made by another Nexon subsidiary Neople is a puzzle game that features slow style of play.
Neople also exhibited "Evil Factory," an arcade shooting game with classic 2D graphics.
"Regardless of the profitability or market success of these games, it seems meaningful to see a large game enterprise like Nexon developing games that provide unique entertainment like indie titles," an industry source said.
Netmarble Games, the largest mobile game company here, exhibited only three titles ― "Lineage 2: Revolution," "Penta Storm," and "Star Wars: Force Arena."
In particular, visitors crowded demonstration zones for "Lineage 2: Revolution" and "Penta Storm." The visitors paid intense attention to "Penta Storm," which provides a competitive multiplayer gaming experience much like that of "League of Legends," which one of the world's most popular computer online games.
"Star Wars: Force Arena" has drawn much attention from foreign visitors, proving the strong influence of intellectual property.
"Considering the great popularity of Star Wars series, the new mobile game is likely to be a hit in North America and Europe," an industry source said.
Kakao participated in the B2C sector for the first time this year with its casual puzzle game "Friends Popcorn." It has set up a competitive demonstration booth outside BEXCO, drawing much attention.
Separately, the provider of Korea's largest mobile instant messenger service Kakao Talk unveiled its plan to launch an integrated game portal service that allows users to play mobile games on personal computers.
The computer game portal service, tentatively named "Byul," is expected to blur the lines further between mobile and computer online game platforms.
"Next year, we will present the expansion of a new game platform that will break the boundaries of mobiles and personal computers," said Kakao game business head Namkoong Whon.
As well as the new portal service, Kakao said it would upgrade its mobile game publishing service through Kakao Talk in a way that its partner game companies retained subscribers while attracting new users. With this upgrade will be able to directly access mobile games through Kakao Talk.
"The upgrade will help our partners boost actual performances as a game marketing channel," Namkoong said.
Since Namkoong joining Kakao last year, Kakao's game business has rapidly recovered profitability. The company posted 78.5 billion won in game business sales in the third quarter, up 52.7 percent year-on-year.
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