Posts Tagged ‘Neowiz Games’

« Older Entries

S4 League Invades Indonesia

March 5th, 2012

A stylish action TPS game <S4 League> invades Indonesia.

Neowiz Games signed the publishing agreement in Indonesia with PT. Lyto today.

<S4 League> has attracted 17,000 concurrent users in Europe and has recently gone to Japan as well.

“It’s glad to intorudce <S4 League> to Indonesian gamers. In combination with rich experience of two publishers, we will do our best to provide the best service for local players,” said SangKyu Yoon the CEO of Neowiz Games.

“<S4 League>’s exciting features including PvP would be brand new experience for Indonesian gamers. We will service it successfully with Neowiz Games,” said Andy Suryanto the CEO of PT. Lyto.

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditDigg ThisShare on Tumblr

1 comment »

Posted in Indonesia, Korean Games Industry

Tags:

Selective Shutdown Takes Effect on Big Companies

January 16th, 2012

The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism(MCST)’s selective shutdown system will take effect on January 22.

The MCST discussed with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family(MGEF) who enforces the forcible shutdown system over a range of application of the system and concluded that it only includes big companies who make more than US$26 million a year, excluding whole mobile game firms.

The selective shutdown system is an youth protection law that stops students under age 18 from playing games if demanded by himself/herself or their parents.

Thus the home of online games now has two strong laws that deter the young gamers from playing the online games.

Classifying the targets by annual sales

The criterion is based on the target companies’ annual sales.

Those who make more than US$26M per year now must enforce the selective shutdown as well as self-confirmation and consent of the parents. Those who make somewhere between US$4M and US$26M only need to implement the self-confirmation and consent of the parents while the rest smaller companies do not have a duty to provide such services.

Therefore NCsoft, Nexon, Neowiz Games, Blizzard, and other big companies are required to implement not only the shutdown system made by the MGEF but also the selective shutdown system of the MCST and the self-confirmation works from coming 22nd. Xbox360 and PS3 too cannot evade the law if they gain more than US$26M in Korea.

Such criterion is brought by the consultation between the MCST and the MGEF. The MCST reportedly tried to limit the target within the games played for more than average 2 hours a day, but the MGEF opposed it and insisted to include all kinds of games.

So both ministries drew a conclusion that excludes only petty firms by setting up the criterion of annual turnover.

Industry “Cannot Understand the Criterion”

The game industry stands against the ministries’ action. They raised their voice that it turns the legitimacy of the standard and the purpose of the legislation.

Some doubt that the MGEF influenced in enforcing the law with the standard in order to make its planned bill that collects 1% of game tax from the game industry comes true later.

“Actually, as far as I know, the MGEF strongly opposed the initial standard proposed by the MCST. Consequently they arranged with the current standard as the MGEF wanted. On top of double restrictions, we should see this as a first step toward the game tax,” said a game industry official.

The revised bill of Game Law including the selective shutdown takes effect on January 22, having a grace period of 6 months.

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditDigg ThisShare on Tumblr

No comments »

Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags:

Korean Games Withdrawing from China This Year

December 22nd, 2011

Starting with <Legend of Mir 2> there are many Korean online games hit Chinese gaming market successfully with millions of concurrent users(CCU) such as <Dungeon and Fighters> and <Crossfire>. Yet there are many failed ones too.

 

First of all, ESTsoft’s <Cabal Online> closes its Chinese service by next January.

<Cabal Online>’s Chinese publisher Moliyo(摩力遊) has continued to publish it although its publishing contract had expired two years ago, insisting they had one more year to provide the service. <Cabal Online> in China is still available in 2011.

While Moliyo has been developing <Cabal Online 2> secretly, ESTsoft has sued it for its illegal service of <Cabal Online>. Moliyo has been ruled to quit publishing the game and pay about US$473,000 to ESTsoft as compensation. You can read more about the controversial <Cabal Online 2> here.

 

Gravity’s MMORPG <Ragnarok Online> also ends by December 30, 2011.

It has been published in China since 2003 and had recorded 500,000 CCU in 2003, but its current publisher Shanda Games decided to end it because of surge of private servers, causing collapse in CCU and revenue. The publisher announced its closure last November 1 to the players.

 

EA-Neowiz Games’ online soccer game <FIFA Online 2> will withdraw from the China on its third year to the market.

The Chinese publisher The9 announced its withdrawal last November. In December 2010, it has agreed with EA about early termination of their publishing contract, notifying no minimum guarantee since the game had not really worked out well.

 

For <AIKA Online>, it actually had gained favorable feedback from the players but has closed its service as its local publisher has closed down due to difficulties in dealing with localization and auto-play programs.

Therefore Hanbit Soft re-signed the publishing contract with Wonder Games last September and announced its reopen would go within this year.

NCsoft’s <Lineage> and <Lineage 2> have changed their publisher to Tencents while nothing has been heard from Nexon’s <Planet Nexon> since its last CBT taken place last August.

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditDigg ThisShare on Tumblr

1 comment »

Posted in China

Tags:

2nd Big Bang in Online Football Games in Korea

September 5th, 2011

Last week, NHN announced co-development of <Winning Eleven Online> with Konami Digital Entertainment. Two days later, KTH also revealed cooperation with SEGA over <Football Manager Online>. In addition to EA-Neowiz Games’ <FIFA Online>, other two worldwide popular football games chose to work with Korean developers for the online versions of their representative titles.

Guess why?

<Football Manager Online> is set to launch CBT in this autumn and <Winning Eleven Online> is aiming next year. Moreover, Korean developer AniPark’s new football online game <Chagu Chagu> is also going to be out in 2012. So year 2012 would be a big bang of online football games in Korean game industry. ※ ‘Chagu’ means kicking.

 

■ Frustration from Expected War of Online Football Games in 2006

Well, this is not the first time Korean game industry caught in football game fever. In 2006, the year of FIFA German Worldcup, we had a lot of football games introduced indeed.

Game studios in Korea instantly started developing football games as so many Korean gamers love playing <FIFA>, <Winning Eleven>, or <Football Manager> and the craze of the Worldcup hit Korea.

So more than 10 studios announced new football games prior to the Worldcup, but most of them failed to achieve certain portion of the market because they were just nothing but improvised games due to shortage of development time.

 

■ Overwhelming Gap Between Popular Football Games and Improvised Works

<FIFA Online> was the one survived in the 2006 football game market.

It topped 50,000 CCU within 9 days during OBT and achieved 100,000 CCU within 20 days. This was the fastest CCU record in the Korean online game history.

After all, it recorded 180,000 CCU and its sequel <FIFA Online 2> gathered 220,000 CCU last July.

The war of football online games ended with a winner <FIFA Online>. All the Korean titles were totally overwhelmed. The gap seemed too big.

The incompletion arisen from the lack of time was the key failure. An official from a publisher then even said “The biggest criterion during the development was whether it was more fun to play than <FIFA> and <Winning Eleven>.”

 

■ Second Big Bang of Online Football Games Coming 2012

After 6 years from 2006, there seems like another war for the online football game.

For now, <FIFA Online> is defenately the king of the market and <Freestyle Football> of JCE is saving Korean developers’ pride.

Unlike RPG market, 3rd place in the casual game market means nothing. In racing genre, <Kart Rider> and <Tales Runner> were two tops while <Sudden Attack> and <Special Force> led FPS market. Not much differently, baseball game <Magu Magu> and <Slugger>also share the whole market bilaterally.

So ‘No.3′ in casual game market does not mean success.

It is also exciting to watch which collaboration of NHN-<Winning Eleven>, KTH-<Football Manager>, and Neowiz Games-<FIFA> would defeat the others in Korea.

Guess who?

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditDigg ThisShare on Tumblr

No comments »

Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags:

Neowiz “AAA MMORPG Is Coming”

August 10th, 2011

Neowiz Games announced that they are under development of brand new MMORPG aiming the global market at its Q2 earning report on Aug 10.

In Q2, Neowiz Games acheived revenue of US$155m which is the biggest hit ever in a quater. The business profit and the net profit during the term are respectively US$24m and US$12m.

A notable thing is that its weight of the overseas revenue surpassed 50% for the first time. It seems have been leveraged from the success of <Cross Fire> in China.

SangGyu Yoon the CEO of Neowiz Games hinted a big game is coming. He said “Not only <Cross Fire> But <A.V.A> is also doing great in China. A casual game <Puzzle Bubble Online> will be launched within this month and three other games will be launched within this year too. Later on, we will introduce other titles sourced at home and abroad including a self-developed MMORPG.”

 

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditDigg ThisShare on Tumblr

1 comment »

Posted in Korean Games Industry

Tags: