泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Is there a crisis of mobile game?

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Is there a crisis of mobile game?

Recently, I was asked to present on the subject of a crisis of the Korean mobile-game industry. I have mentioned the gaming-market crisis in my column over several times, however, I'd like to talk about it from an investor's point of view this time.

Speaking as the venture capitalist, a good investment target includes high-profitability industry, fast-growing industry, undervalued industry, and strategic-investment-partnership -based industry, etc.

There were massive investments in the local mobile-gaming industry around 2013 to 2014. But the result of the investment was not that good. Dozens of cases of investment failure brought about drastically reduced investment and investors maintain a wait-and-see attitude now.

The domestic mobile-gaming industry was increased unprecedently in history in 2013. It had made explosive growth of 190.6 percent since KakaoTalk Game Platform service was launched in 2012. But the growth has sharply declined as you can see from an estimated 4.2 percent in 2014 and the domestic mobile-game industry has become mature in a relatively short period time predicting 1.8 percent year-on-year growth in 2015.

Much anticipation had been building amongst local mobile-game developers in 2014 when many of them had received an investment proposal from Chinese companies obtained large-scale funding. Talking about conditions from Chinese investors, a good number of game makers expected domestic investment firms to invest two to three times the size of the existing company valuation. It threatened to dampen Korean domestic investment and Chinese companies attained predominance in the local game-investment field. But unlike the negotiation process of Korean companies, Chinese investors unilaterally terminated an agreement with frequency, which put many local game companies in an awkward position.

A small number of publishers are currently taking over the Korean mobile-game market allowing their cost to spend on strategic investments. Now, in a situation where domestic investment firms are unwilling to invest money in the gaming sector, a handful of strategic direct investors are of great importance supporting its industry. However, the currently unbalanced situation depending upon a few numbers of firms will be forced to deepen industrial polarization among game developers and distort our industrial habitat anytime.

The local mobile-game market is not attractive compared to two to three years ago. Growth has been drastically slowed and company valuation is too high from investor's viewpoint. Now, the whole sector depends on the minimum number and the market polarization is severe.

But the free play of market forces naturally creates new opportunities throughout the domestic mobile-game industry without mentioning a hackneyed axiom "Never let a good crisis go to waste". I hope that I'll be able to write how Korean mobile-game industry overcame the crisis at this time next year.

 

※ 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 _ Between 2003 HULK and 2015 Marvel: Future Fight

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Between 2003 HULK and 2015 Marvel: Future Fight

A mobile game HULK was released in 2003 with a small capacity of 100KB and a half the size of the current smart-phone screen. The Com2uS-developed game was a shock to me who ran a mobile-game development at that time. It was the one that I desperately wanted to make. Besides, I guessed that an action-mobile game of that level would become into the market in 1-2 years.

Marvel: Future Fight has gained huge popularity with users. I'm also spending the longest time playing it among the recently released ones. It is a superhero-themed video game based on characters of Avengers: Age of Ultron which was the fourth foreign film recorded over 10 million viewers in South Korea. The days when I enjoyed the HULK in 2003 seem to belong to a different age. The tough and strong 'Hulk' character, which I desperately wanted to express, on the very little screen in 2D back then and realistic 3D characters of showy colors today are poles apart like the gap between a bicycle and a car.

In retrospect, it's not easy to find a hit video game based on a cartoon, film, or novel. One Source Multi-Use (OSMU) is widely used in the local content industry, however, it would be difficult for readers reading this column to list more than ten mega-hit video games from a different genre of content.

Why are developers making a video game based on the original content despite a slim chance of success in the market? I can't say for sure, but I believe that the main reason is brand recognition. Marketing costs for recently-released video games are much more incredible than in the past, thus some game makers try to choose a famous character from original work that users are easily aware of it. There should be lots of potential customers who want to play a video game with characters such as Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor Odinson, etc.

But original-based video games simply become a double-edged sword, if they don't meet the high expectations of users. It's hard to build a different worldview from the setting of the original work and not easy to make the well-balanced game due to restrictions on game characters. Poor-quality video games cannot help being drawn criticism from fans of the original ones.

Marvel: Future Fight is a well-made video game. The user response to a recently released The God of High School, which is based on a domestic webtoon, is still good. I expect to see many hit video games with characters based on the local original content, not overseas ones.

 

※ 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 _ MU Online, 全民奇迹MU, and MU Origin

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

MU Online, 全民奇迹MU, and MU Origin

The recent biggest news in the gaming industry seems to be a notable success of MU Origin in the domestic market. It was second on the Top Grossing category list of the Google Play within a week and temporarily took the first place beating Raven (Evilbane in the U.S.) by Netmarble.

MU Origin is 全民奇迹(Jeonmingijeok)-MU developed by TIANMA and published by Kingnet in China. It already proved to be successful, ranking high on top of Chinese mobile game charts for a few months. As the title suggests it, MU Origin is the mobile version of MU Online, the greatest hit by Webzen, which was released more than a decade earlier in Korea. Cutting classes to play MU Online in 2001 is still fresh in my memory. Despite poor grades, the Webzen-produced MMORPG had a big impact on my life; I set up a video game company in 2002 and I'm still working in the gaming-related industry. To return, MU Origin shows gameplay, worldview, and game characters of the PC-based MU in the same way. There have been many variations of user interface and input devices suitable for mobile use for more than ten years, however, a user who had any previous experience playing MU Online easily can see familiar monsters, characters, and maps as soon as it begins.

Recently, it is not rare to hear that China has a leg up on South Korea in the field of video-game development citing the notable success of MU Origin. Because China-developed games such as MU, 刀塔传奇 (Dao Ta Chuan Qi), Rush of Heroes (我叫MT2 in China, Top of Tanker in South Korea), etc. have made record-high sales in the local market, while domestic developers haven't achieved any performance in the Chinese market during the same period.

But I have different thoughts on the issue. The population of China is ten times that of South Korea and a large number of video games are made and released to its population. Well-made games and low-quality games are mixed in together. A few record-high-sales games among them have drawn the attention, however, there have been numerous ones have disappeared from the local market before we were aware of them. Korean game developers haven't had a proper chance to release their superior-quality video games and it's not suitable time to evaluate excellence with the sales performance of a few Korean games selling in China due to the unproven ability of Chinese publishers. It might be a lack of localization or management ability of Chinese publishers not because of the problem of games themselves.

It is too soon to tell that the growth of China is surpassing the national ability to develop mobile games. Of course, I think that China is getting more advanced while our research on the Chinese gaming market is lacking. But, as I mentioned previously, the fact that MU Origin based on the huge-hit MU Online was made by Chinese development and won success in Korean market paradoxically might show hope of Korean games' success in the Chinese market. South Korea is still recognized as the personal-computer-game powerhouse and its mobile game market is in the top 5 in the world. I expect that a game like MU Origin would be made by a domestic development, not by overseas one.

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

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui