The Korean game market is currently valued at 2.4 trillion South Korean Won (KRW). According to Metaps’s latest research in 2015, 70% of the most popular games in Korea originated from China. Meanwhile, 6 out of the top 8 game publishers on Google Play Korea are all from China, which indicates that Chinese companies are playing an increasingly important role in the Korean game market.
Take 37Games as an example, it first stabilized its position in Korea with Blood and Jade, which became one of the top 10 games in Korea 2013. Now the company’s Korean platform PUPUGAME owns the largest game market share in Korea. In 2014, 37Games acquired the IP of MU from WEBZEN and adapted it into a popular browser game in China called Archangel. The company has also acquired Lineage II in 2015. Meanwhile, according to its founder and President Li Yi Fei, 37Games’s latest mobile game Dawn After Dark has been released in the Korean market and is believed to be performing quite well.
As Chinese games become more popular in Korea, more Chinese game publishers have chosen to increase their presence in the Korean market by acquiring local game companies. For example, 37Games holds a 59.12% stake in ENP Games Co., Ltd., and indirectly owns a 5% stake in EST SOFT. Meanwhile, the same Chinese company has handed over its game publishing for the Korean market to its independent local subsidiary ENP Games Co., Ltd. 37Games President, Mr. Li, thinks it will be beneficial for the company’s future to make good utilization of both its international development teams that bring diversified visions and its local operation teams who understand the target players better. Mr. Li also thinks that the general trend for Chinese companies is to seek more investment opportunities in the Korean market, where tastes and culture are similar to those in China.
Source: 37Games
