Turnover for South Korean games for Google Play in first quarter has neared $884 million (1 trillion KRW). It is estimated that Google Korea will record its great yearly record due to popular mobile games such as ‘Lineage 2 Revolution’ and ‘Linage M’.
According to an app analysis company called IGAWorks, turnover for South Korea’s game category for Google Play surpassed $707 million (800 billion KRW) in first quarter. Turnover is the amount that includes the payments that are made to purchase paid applications within Google Play and payments that are made within an application.
According to IGAWorks, turnovers for South Korea’s game category for Google play in January, February, and March were $255 million (288.2 billion KRW), $223 million (251.7 billion KRW), and $233 million (263.4 billion KRW) respectively. Turnover that is accumulated until end of May is $1.11 billion (1.2509 trillion KRW). Google takes 30% of Google Play’s turnovers as commission.
According to IGAWorks, turnover for South Korea’s game category for Google Play in last March was about $133 million (150 billion KRW).
Reason why turnover has increased so rapidly is due to a mobile game called ‘Lineage 2 Revolution’ that is released by Netmarble Games. Turnover in last December, when Lineage 2 Revolution was released, was $220 million (248.7 billion KRW) which is 46% increase from previous month.
It is likely that Google will record its biggest performance in South Korea this year. According to ‘2016 South Korea Mobile Internet Industry Status’ that was announced by MOIBA (Korea Mobile Internet Business Association) in April, Google Play recorded $3.95 billion (4.4656 trillion KRW) of turnover in South Korea last year.
It is expected that Lineage M, which will be released by NCSoft on the 21st, will carry Google Korea’s performance during second half of this year. Lineage M is a mobile MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) version of ‘Lineage’. Many online game users and mobile RPG users from Lineage 2 Revolution and others are likely to access Lineage M. NCSoft and Google co-invested their finances and have been carrying out marketing since two months before release date of Lineage M.
Game industries are focused on whether or not Lineage M will break the record set by Lineage 2 Revolution. Already 5 million people have subscribed to Lineage M and this number has easily surpassed record set by Lineage 2 Revolution which is 3.4 million people.
First month sales for Lineage 2 Revolution were $182 million (206 billion KRW). “NCSoft, which recently had its stock reach the highest point ever in company’s history,# is planning to manage Lineage M so that it can break the record that was made by Lineage 2 Revolution.” said a representative for a game industry. According to IGAWorks, turnover for South Korean games for Google Play in 2016 was about $1.85 billion (2.09 trillion KRW). According to this trend, it will be possible for turnover for this year will surpass $2.65 billion (3 trillion KRW). This indicates that Google will make about $884 million (1 trillion KRW) in South Korea just from mobile games.
IGAWorks utilizes sales estimation algorithm from a global mobile game ranking site called Gevolution and calculates turnover. After estimating sales from top 540 applications from Google Play, Gevolution groups them in many different ways and adds them up.
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com
