泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and KakaoTalk
The biggest news in the mobile market recently, as I think, is that Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge eventually came out. I had an opportunity to see the new cell phone in person thanks to a friend of mine working for Samsung Electronics. Remarkably curved surface and multiple functions using the new shape notably made the phone look cool as to be called the new generation of Galaxy design. I was highly satisfied with the style that there is a significant difference before and after Edge. Comparing to the disappointing design and sales performance of Galaxy 5, we can see huge differences in particular.
Of course, I don't writing this column to show off that I checked it out ahead of time. Probably users can buy Edge in the market when the column would be released. The reason I mentioned the new phone is to talk about Nokia. Less than 10 years ago, the Finnish corporation was the global leader in mobile phones. It ranked first with the largest market share at more than 30 percent, which seemed never going to end. The market power of the Finnish company in those days was much stronger than the current South Korean multinational electronics company's. Nokia Oyj, the global company, accounted for a third of the Finnish economy, made up 60 percent of the total market value of Finland's listed companies, and formed 20 percent of the country's total export. Finnish former World No. 1, which couldn't adapt to market changes, inevitably have declined and now is unable to take the top 10 smartphones at present. This is the story that has only lasted for several years.
The hottest local mobile game which has been recently released is probably Raven: Festival. The Netmarble-published video game topped Supercell's Clash of Clans, which had been the top-ranked for a long time, however, as I see it, the big success without the help of Kakao Talk is probably the other reason being received the major spotlight. This is the first case that the domestic mobile game has taken the top 5 without KaTalk help in recent months regardless of the examples by foreign mobile games. It means that mobile-game service based on the mobile instant messaging application for smartphones is no longer a standard procedure at home.
I have quite often heard a rumor about that KaTalk has had less control over the domestic mobile-game market not so long ago. A decent number of users are said not to prefer it than before and to tend to treat text messages that recommend a newly-released game as spam. But Kakao Game center hasn't been changed yet. Recently I've heard the news that it has started to seek change. It seems to be willing to change their current commission rate. Raven has just proven that the local mobile game can rank first in the market without the help of the company which has a competitive advantage and it sets a new direction for other mobile-game developers.
Now Kakao Talk would be changed. It can be a second Nokia if it doesn't appropriately respond to rapid market changes. Expecting that Kakao Game center wouldn't repeat the same error like Nokia, I cautiously predict that a wind of change would be blowing through the mobile-game world in South Korea.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
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