It seems that NC soft has been investing about $8.5 million (10 billion KRW) in buying shares of outside mobile developers since December of 2014. After going out of PC platform that it had been concentrating on, it has been extensively strengthening its mobile business.
According to NC soft , it invested in at least 5 Korean and foreign gaming companies since last December till first half of 2015, and its amount of investments ranges from $254,000 (300 million KRW) to $5.1 million (6 billion KRW).
Starting from its investment of $423,000 (500 million KRW) in NOVN in last December, it carried out total investment of $1.7 million (2 billion KRW) by investing $254,000 (300 million KRW) in Dotomchi Games in January and same amount in Arasopandan and Binary in February.
All of these businesses are small-sized mobile development startups with 10 employees or less. These businesses have one thing in common that they are developing games based on ideas in which their characteristics do not exist in current market.
In North America, NC soft invested $5 million (about 6 billion KRW) recently in ThisGameStudio that is in Vancouver, Canada.
ThisGameStudio is a new mobile development studio in which developers from Kabam and EA came together and established. A person associated with NC soft explained that its investment in ThisGameStudio is a part of strategic investment to strengthen its mobile game business in North America region.
It is unusual that NC soft increased its investment in mobile games in a short period of time. It hired Director YooJoo Dong, who is a specialist in investments, and had him in charge of Corporation Development Room to find mobile game businesses.
Major area that NC soft focuses on is PC platform-based MMORPG such as ‘Lineage’ series. Importance of PC online games was overwhelming as its percentage of sales in second quarter was over 90% out of its second quarter sales of $184 million (217.5 billion KRW).
Reason why NC soft decided to strengthen its mobile business has to do with changes in market.
About 23% of its competitor Nexon’s sales in second quarter were from mobile games, and Netmarble Games made 90% of its sales from mobile games. As Netmarble Games’ mobile game business greatly grew, its sales surpassed NC soft for 2 quarters in a row.
Other than investing in outside developers, NC soft is planning to strengthen its mobile business through self-development, opening of IPs to public, publishing business, and others. It is as if it is trying everything that is possible within mobile games.
“Although we cannot do anything about people turning their attentions to PC platform games such as Lineage Eternal, we are greatly strengthening our investments in mobile games starting from last year.” said a person associated with NC soft.
NC soft is currently developing 3 mobile games ‘Blade & Soul Mobile’, ‘AION Legions’, and ‘Fashion Street’ by using its current IPs. Out of these 3 games, NC soft is currently testing ‘Blade & Soul Mobile’ in China through Tencent.
Its affiliate Ntreev is focusing on casual mobile games. It has started developing mobile version of its golf game ‘Pangya’, which was very successful in PC online, ‘Pangya Mobile’.
Its goal is to release mobile MMORPG ‘Project S’, which is made using IP of ‘Lineage 2’, next year.
NC soft is planning to start mobile game publishing business starting from second half. A person associated with NC soft said that it is planning to start mobile game publishing business that it decided to release in second half.
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com
