Smilegate Group’s game publishing business is becoming more active. Smilegate Megaport (Megaport) showed visual performance after appointing Jang In-a as the president of Smilegate Megaport a year ago.
Megaport had 1.5 million people download its music playing game called ‘The Musician’, which was released in last July, in just a month from its release. It broke the stereotype of how only certain people enjoy rhythm games and is enjoying popularity of The Musician.
The Musician,, which had its publication right secured by Smilegate Megalab after it invested into a developer called Reimers is a game that is polished by Smilegate Entertainment and released and managed by Megaport. Megaport increased its expertise by dividing tasks to a certain department.
Megaport started its professional publishing system after appointing Jang In-ah as the president on the 1st of August. It released 5 games until end of August and it is rare that Smilegate released several types of games in a short period of time. Including a mobile strategy game called ‘War Reign’, which is going to be released during fourth quarter of this year, Megaport is releasing total of 6 games.
It has accumulated knowhow by releasing variety of online and mobile games such as RPG (Role Playing Game), music playing, FPS (First-Person Shooter) game, and sandbox.
‘Super Tank Rumble’, which was released in past February, was recognized of its qualities as a game through an unique concept called mobile crafting sandbox and was selected to be Google Featured. Super Tank Rumble is closing on 10 million downloads worldwide.
Mobile FPS game called ‘TAHN’, became the number one game in South Korea’s mobile FPS market, which as been a wasteland, in popularity. It is leading South Korea’s casual e-Sports industry by having a South Korean team participate in ‘TAHN Asia Invitational’ that was held in China.
Mobile RPG called ‘Chaos Masters’, which reconstructed a popular online game called ‘Chaos’, became second place based on popularity of Google Play and entered top 20 ranking based on sales.
Smilegate Group is a game developer that has grown due to popularity of an online FPS game called ‘Crossfire’ in China. It made $586 million (661.9 billion KRW) and $332 million (374.8 billion KRW) in sales and operating profit respectively in 2016 and has become the fifth place in South Korea based on sales. However based on operating profit, it is in a second place followed by Nexon.
Although it is maintaining positive performance from Crossfire, it is seen as an example of ‘one-hit wonder’ that has only one popular game within South Korean game industries.
President Jang, who is standing at the center of a ‘structural change’, is one of the person that contributed in making Crossfire popular in China. She had led Crossfire business as she was in charge of business cooperation with China’s Tencent.
President Jang also serves as the presidents of Smilegate Entertainment and Smilegate Worldwide and is in charge of distributing online and mobile games in South Korea and other countries. She has also emerged as an influential person in management by participating in a board of directors of Smilegate Group, which recently restructured itself into a chairperson system.
After 2010, Smilegate Group has been looking for driving forces for the future by developing a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called ‘Lost Ark’ and releasing an entertainment platform called ‘STOVE’. It is currently accumulating knowhow in business by diversifying its publishing business with Megaport at the center since last year. It has also consistently hired experts in business. Lost Ark is in a final stage of development as it recently went through second CBT (Close Beta Test).
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com