泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
Adieu 2015!!! (Part1)
The year 2015 is coming to an end soon. This column would be probably released in the new year. I feel like to blame a love who dumped someone before one can barely go 10lis—approximately equal to 5kms—, however, I want to let the year 2015 go and have meaningful time looking back over the past year.
To begin with, many highly popular RPG(Role-playing game)s have been released in 2015. Until January of this year, Clash of Clans notched up to the No.1 spot competing with No.2 ranking Seven Knights and the other top-ranked RPGs such as Hero and Monster Tamer. By March, Raven immediately rose to the number one just after its release. MU Origin, which was published at the end of April, competed for first place with Raven for some time since, and Seven Knights joined in ever since before the release of Idea and Hit in November. Six games including Hit, MU Origin, Raven, Seven Knights, Idea, and Monster Tamer are currently placed in the top ten based on sales and four games in top five are role-playing games. Taking this into consideration, RPGs have been particularly loved by users for nearly a year.
Secondly, many famous actors have modeled for video games in TV commercials or billboards. Cha Seung-won for Raven was first one, followed by top actors including Ha Jung-woo for ChronoBlade, Jang Dong-gun for Mu Origin, Lee Jung-jae for Ghost, Jung Woo-sung for 乱斗(Romaja: Nantoo), and Lee Byung-hun for Idea. It reflects the heightened status of the video game. On the one hand, a small number of RPGs are gaining control of the gaming market. A newly-released video game without a big advertising campaign is almost impossible to be high on various game charts where the top players generate most of the industry-wide revenue.
Moreover, clicker games—also known as incremental games or idle games—such as Survive, Sunfish!, Tap Titans 2, Mr.Kim, Idle Knight, and Endless Frontier have shown better-than-expected results. Idle games can be made in a relatively short period time and an idea especially counts for them. Therefore incremental games are now emerging as a new alternative of the smaller firms or indie game developers. In-game advertising, which often serves as an advertising media for the popular ones ranked high in the list of games, is a major source of the clicker game's revenue.
Finally, Chinese game makers have started to expand into the domestic market. At the beginning of the year, a large number of internal game developers had plans to enter the Chinese market. In sharp contrast, now there are too many news stories about Chinese games which would be released in Korea. It's hard to acknowledge the reality of the situation we're in because any Chinese game hasn't held the top spots in-game revenue ranking yet. However, if you look at it closely, there are dozens of Chinese games in the domestic ranking. Besides, MU Origin, though it is a mobile version of the Korean game, can be considered as a top-ranked Chinese game in the home market because it was made in China.
- to be continued
※ 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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