Sure Bets
An increasing number of mobile game developers are making use of pre-existing intellectual property (IP) these days. Popular webtoons, online games, and messenger character emoticons are being incorporated into mobile games.
The 2D mobile role-playing game God of High School, developed by YD Online and based on cartoonist Park Yong-je’s Naver webtoon of the same title dating back to April 2011, recently hit two million downloads on the Google Play store. NHN Entertainment is currently working on a 3D side-scrolling version of the God of High School to launch it in the third quarter of this year.
In addition, NHN Entertainment is planning to release a game based on the webtoon titled Tower of God before the end of the third quarter and Friends Pop for Kakao within this month. Friends Pop for Kakao is the first casual puzzle game using the emoticon characters of the Kakao Talk mobile messenger. More than 550,000 users subscribed to it on the first pre-sale day.
In the meantime, Netmarble Games is developing a mobile version of NCSoft’s online MMORPG Lineage 2. The two companies formed a strategic partnership to that end early this year. Lineage 2 is one of NCSoft’s flagship products, launched 12 years ago. Netmarble Games is in charge of development, while NCSoft provides the IP.
XL Games is working on a mobile version of the online game Archeage, too. The company is working together with mobile game publisher Gamevil for the purpose. Once the former comes up with the mobile game, the latter handles marketing and publishing.
The increasing popularity of pre-existing IP in the industry is because a greater chance of success can be ensured with already popular webtoon and animation content. “The utilization of webtoons is an important trend in today’s entertainment sector,” said an industry expert, adding, “A lot of TV dramas and movies based on webtoons have already achieved success, and games are also following the trend nowadays.” He continued, “It can be a very viable option for Korean game developers, as competition with Chinese and European firms as well as among themselves is becoming more and more intense.”