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Posts Tagged ‘mobile’

BarunsOn Games stepping into mobile game universe

May 10th, 2013

BarunsOn games held media conference on 9^th to reveal their plan to step into Mobile gaming market and reveal the mobile game line-up. BarunsOn games have developed PC online games for 10 years such as Last Chaos and Laghaim.

With entering into the mobile game market, BarunSon games revealed 8 mobile games. They are all developed by itself or through subsidiary companies – Nitrozen, Fingernet, and Naogames. They will add more mobile games near future up to 14 to 15.

MMORPG Project A is also in development. They predicted 1^st CBT might be started within this year and OBT for 2014.

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Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags: BarunsOn games Laghaim Last Chaos MMORPG mobile Project A

NEXON recorded $1.38 billion in revenue

February 14th, 2013

NEXON announced 4^th quarter revenue as well as revenue for 2012 on 13^th through TSE(Tokyo Stock Excahnge). NEXON recorded $1.38 billion for 2012 revenue, which 24% is increased comparing to 2011. Revenue in Japan has been increased a lot since NEXON acquired Gloops, a mobile game company.

NEXON declared that they are going to approach to the Japanese mobile game market more aggressively with the acquiring of Gloops in last October. According to the announcement, NEXON recorded $130 million revenue during the 4^th quarter of 2012 in Japan only, which 72% is increased comparing to the same period in 2011. Considering NEXON recorded $91.5 million revenue for the 4^th quarter in Korea, Japan market’s revenue overtook Korean market’s revenue already. NEXON also acquired another Japanese mobile game company – inBlue. NEXON expects better revenue from Japanese market in 2013 because NEXON made a contract with DeNA who is operating one of biggest mobile game platform Mobage, in January.

NEXON will launch Warface from Crytek and Pro Baseball 2K from 2K Sports during the first half. DOTA2 from Valve and Counter Strike 2 Online will be ready for the second half. NEXON did not leave a comment on Maple Story 2 and Mabinogi 2. Cyphers is scheduled to launch at the end of 2013 in China.

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Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags: Counter Strike online2 dena DOTA2 Gloops inBlue Japan Mabinogi2 Maple Story2 Mobage mobile Nexon Pro Baseball 2K Revenue warface

NHN split game and mobile division

February 7th, 2013

NHN decided to split the company at the director’s meeting on the 6^th, FEB. NHN separate its game and mobile divisions to strengthen its competitiveness for each market. NHN Japan also split Hangame as well. NHN will be focusing on Portal business, while Hangame and LINE Plus/Camp Mobile take care of game and mobile business.

NHN told “It is time to guarantee entrepreneurial independence for game and portal businesses. It is necessary to have the best optimized communication structure, HR system, and organizational culture for each business area. It is positively necessary to split the company to go forward.”

There is nothing to be decided for OrangeCrew and Naver Game yet. OrangeCrew is mobile game developing center for NHN and Naver Game is operating game channeling service with 8 million users. It is possible that they both are merged into Hangame, However it is also possible that NHN will keep PC online, Mobile and developing division and business division separately since NHN split its business into wire and wireless.

NHN also decided to establish new companies to strengthen its mobile service. While Camp Mobile will be taking care of various internet businesses under the current smartphone environment, LINE Plus is for the mobile messenger service with games. Both companies are independent subsidiaries of NHN.

LINE already has over 100 million registered users all over the world and will compete with KAKAO as a mobile game distribution platform. KAKAO is dominating the domestic market, but LINE has been succeeded in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Therefore, it has been known that LINE is a better platform for international market to Korean mobile game developers, especially for Japan.

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Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags: camp mobile Hangame mobile Naver game NHN NHN Japan orangecrew

NCsoft focuses on Chinese market and mobile games in 2013

February 6th, 2013

According to NCsoft 3rd quarter 2012 earnings report, the earnings were increased with the releases of Blade & Soul, Guild Wars 2. Lineage, the oldest game of the company, generated the incredible amount of revenue more than the revenue from Linage 2 and Aion.

The total revenue during the term is 188.2 billion Korean Won (About US$173 million), which 23% was increased compared to the last year same period.

The primary goal for the year 2013 for NCsoft is the successful launching of Guild War 2 and Blade & Soul to China and other Asian countries. Blade & Soul for China will be F2P unlike Korea and heavily localized for China as well. NCsoft chose different publishers for both games – Tencent for Blade & Soul, Kongzhong for Guild War 2 – because Tencent has too many MMORPGs to launch this year include Archeage.

NCsoft will focus on mobile game market as well since the company declared the year 2013 as the first year to enter into the mobile game market. Ncsoft is developing Linage: The second Moon for mobile with GREE and various mobile games will be come from Ntreev, a subsidiary company.

For the western online game market, Wild Star from Carbine Studios is coming.

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Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags: Aion Blade & Soul Carbine Studios guild war 2 Kongzhong Linage MMORPG mobile NCSoft Ntreev Tencent Wild Star

JCE focus on Mobile gaming.

January 21st, 2013

JCE carried out a reshuffle to put its capability on mobile gaming business on the 1^st of January. It launched Mobile Game Development Center with 20% of JCE developers.

JCE plan to release about 10 mobile games releasing this year. Rule the Sky is the biggest successful SNG from JCE so far. The revenue from mobile game was overcome online game during the 3^rd quarter, 2012; is $26 million vs. $21 million.

It has been known that JCE is not developing any online games for 2013. A person from JCE told “We are focusing on developing mobile games for a while.”