泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and KakaoTalk

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

泥中蟠龍‘s Game愛歌_Change of viewpoint makes novelty

Enjoy Korea with Hui: Change of viewpoint makes novelty_泥中蟠龍‘s Game愛歌: S urvive! Mola mola!,  The Deal, and  Megamind  from the left Do you know a recent Japanese mobile game Survive! Mola mola! ? Game her...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Change of viewpoint makes novelty

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Change of viewpoint makes novelty

 

Do you know a recent Japanese mobile game Survive! Mola Mola!? In most games, a game character has to survive, which is the most important mission. However, the more a fish dies, the more gets it stronger in the new concept of Survive! Mola Mola!. Nowadays I'm coming into competition with my friends how many times it dies. It's even hard to die after numerous death and rebirth because the character is too strong. My character has died eighty times and I'm now playing the game with my eighty-first sunfish. I'm hard at playing it for the hundredth revival.

Do you Know a recent Korean movie The Deal? Most crime thrillers deal with a story of the main character tracking down a criminal. But the newly-released film talks about revenge for a murderer who has already caught since he frustrated due to limitations of the administration of justice. Unlike most common crime thrillers, there are very little movie scenes where the main character chases a criminal.

Do you know an animated superhero comedy film Megamind? In most animated films, a hero/heroine fights for justice. But Megamind is a supervillain. The film presents a situation after the villain, who accidentally defeated a brave man, took over the world.

I'd like to talk about fresh attempts as mentioned above. Recently, lots of well-made video games have released. But regardless of the quality, it's not easy to discern their differences because they look pretty much similar comparing random screenshots from one and another. A new trial usually can be said special effort to make something new applied a different method with others. Recent new games seem to be repackaged and renamed after combining some games with a good sales performance without any change of view. New challenges of Survive! Mola Mola!, The Deal, and Megamind are fresh and pleasant in that sense.

Of course, the new attempt doesn't bring about good result all the time. We knew there were many fresh games which are not interesting to play; You must have deleted the games just right after you downloaded or you don't even remember at all about the games themselves. Plus there are a lot of games which are not fresh in the least and don't leave a tiny impression behind; In the past two years, it's hard to count how many Wind Runner-style run games and puzzle games like Anypang were have made.

A new trial is always hard to do and painstaking research is necessarily needed. It is not only a mission but also a challenge itself. Therefore, I love to try to do something new and also to see others' new challenges all the time. For that, I support game developers who launch a fresh attempt. At the same time, I give a big hand to developers to Survive! Mola Mola!, The Deal, and Megamind who already have created the new-style contents.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui