作者：Eric Seufert

尽管韩国是个游戏大国，直到2011年中旬手机游戏在该国仍然只是个小众市场。原因在于苛严的监管制度——韩国政府一贯要求审核发布于本地应用商店的所有游戏，这意味着对玩家只能注册海外应用商店帐户才能体验最新游戏。但自从2011年韩国政府撤销这一政策后，手机游戏在韩国迅猛发展，预计在2013年的手机游戏收益将同比去年增长41%，到2015年至2017年将进入“成熟期”，届时年增长率将达12%-18%左右。（请点击此处查看本系列之中国篇、日本篇）

今年3月份位于印度孟买的Reliance Big Entertainment公司收购了韩国Vluesom Inc.,公司（代表作为《Real Steel》和《F1 2011》）51%的股份。Reliance在Codemasters和梦工厂分别持有50%的股份，本次交易意在增加其在韩国和日本手机游戏市场的影响力。在一年之前，日本社交游戏巨头GREE收购了韩国的Paprika Labs，当时后者的拳头产品《Hero City》在Facebook月活跃用户达150万，并且是该平台发展最快的社交游戏。2012年12月，迪士尼收购了韩国的Studio Ex（当时该工作室尚未发布任何游戏），将此作为进军亚洲手机游戏市场的战略之一。

seoul_korea_cloud flare(from ufert.se)

这些战略性收购显示了韩国手机游戏市场日趋增长的重要性，以及该国游戏开发人才的集中性。本文主要探讨韩国手机游戏市场最杰出的开发商和平台发展现状。

Kakao Games

该手机游戏平台成立于2012年7月，并于同年11月向全球开放服务，其运营商为Kakao，该公司同时也是韩国最热门聊天应用Kakao Talk运营商。Kakao Talk在全球已实现6500万次下载量，据称在韩国智能手机市场中的覆盖率高达95%。

Kakao Games的运营方式与其他游戏平台相似：用户可以在其聊天应用中下载和发布游戏，与他们的联系人进行社交互动，或者共同玩游戏。这些游戏本身是通过用户设备上的应用商店下载，由Kakao Game来处理游戏内部的支付行为（使用的是该平台专用货币Chocos），并与开发商进行三七开分成（扣除平台费用之后）。这意味着针对每款iOS游戏，苹果可以收到30%的平台费用，而Kakao则将再抽成剩余收益的30%。

Kakao Games在韩国上线取得了不俗的成绩——在其上线的三个月内，收益达到5160万美元，下载量达8200万次，独立用户达2300万。该游戏平台在当年10月份（仅韩国市场）收益就达到3530万美元收益，一个月之后Kakao Talk才向全球市场推出Kakao Games。

在韩国App Store的iPhone应用前10名收益榜单中，有5款游戏是通过Kakao Games发布。在韩国Google Play的同个榜单中，Kakao Games所发布游戏甚至占据了9个席位。《Anipang》、《CandyPang》和《Dragon Flight》这三款通过Kakao Games发布的游戏在不到两个月的时间中实现了1000万次下载量。Kakao Games在日本市场用户多达900万。Kakao计划在2013年向该平台再发布100款游戏。

据称中国游戏巨头腾讯掌握了Kakao公司13.84%的股份，韩国网游公司WeMade占股3.8%。Kakao还获得了Ncsoft、NXC和Neowiz公司CEO的天使投资。

Gamevil

这家韩国手机游戏开发商和发行商在2012年收益将近6500万美元，比2011年增长64%，净收益增长将近40%。Gamevil计划在2013年推出50款游戏，预计总收益将近1亿美元。该公司有70%收益来自Android平台，39%来自海外市场。

Gamevil在2012年发布了43款游戏，其中有11款为自主开发，32款是由第三方工作室开发。Gamevil在2012年的“成功率”达23%——在这43款游戏中，有10款游戏晋升至Google Play收益榜单前10名。

Neowiz

它是韩国最大的网游公司之一，也是Pmang门户网站运营商。该公司在2012年的手机游戏数量仍然很少——但在2012年发布了奥运会的官方手机游戏，并于2012年7月中旬宣布进军中国手机游戏市场。Neowiz在今年2月宣布进行第二轮裁员，原因是它与EA的《FIFA　Online》合作已经终止，旗下游戏《穿越火线》收益也出现下滑。

NCSoft

这是一家位于首尔的MMO开发商，代表作包括《Lineage》、《City of Heroes》以及《激战》系列。NCSoft于2011年7月收购了韩国手机游戏开发商HotDog Studios，但在2012年11月，该公司的非主机、非桌面游戏业务在其总收益中仍然仅占比6％。NCSoft表示将在2013年进一步扩大手机游戏业务，推出与GREE合作开发的手机版《Lineage》。

Hangame

这是一家由NHN Corp公司运营的在线和手机游戏门户网站，该公司在韩国掌握了Naver（韩国最热门上搜索引擎）、me2day（类似于Twitter的应用）等一系列网络服务。Hangame在过去两年中有条不紊地进军移动领域，在韩国和海外自主开发游戏，也发布其他公司的产品。该公司发展甚为迅速，在2月份列出了200多个岗位需求，其中多数与手机游戏开发相关。

其母公司NHN Corp旗下另一重要品牌是LINE这款在日本极为热门的聊天应用，最近也宣布其全球用户达到1亿。

WeMade Entertainment

WeMade代表作是《Legend of Mir》MMORPG系列，该游戏玩家超过2亿。该公司2012年手机游戏收益为1100万美元，计划在2013年推出40款手机游戏。WeMade目前有8款手机游戏，其中两者进入了韩国Google Play收益榜单前10名（这两款游戏均通过Kakao Games发布）。

WeMade还将2013年扩展计划瞄准了中国和日本。其美国分公司WeMade Entertainment USA针对北美、欧洲市场开发和发布游戏。WeMade最近宣布与WhatsApp合作，这意味着WhatsApp也有可能创建自己的游戏平台。

Andromeda Games

2013年1月，Andromeda Games（Kakao Games平台上的《Tap Tap》系列开发商）获得了来自IMM Investment和Korea Investment Partners的130万美元投资，将用这笔资金扩展手机游戏项目。

原文发表于2013年3月18日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

An overview of mobile gaming in Asia, Part 1: South Korea

Eric Seufert

Until mid-2011, mobile gaming in South Korea was a niche activity, despite the country’s reputation as a gaming powerhouse. The reason was regulation: the South Korean government insisted on reviewing all games made available in localized app stores, meaning gamers interested in recent titles were forced to register foreign app store accounts. But since this reversal in governmental oversight in 2011, mobile gaming has surged in South Korea: mobile gaming revenues are expected to grow by about 41% (year-over-year) in 2013 while settling into year-over-year growth of between 12 and 18% in a “maturity stage” from 2015 to 2017.

This month, Mumbai-based Reliance Big Entertainment purchased a 51% stake in Bhusan, South Korea-based Bluesom Inc., the developer of Real Steel and F1 2011. Reliance, which owns 50% stakes in both Codemasters and DreamWorks Pictures, made the acquisition as a play to increase its presence in the South Korean and Japanese mobile gaming markets. A little less than a year ago, GREE acquired South Korea-based Paprika Labs. At the time, Paprika Labs’ flagship game, Hero City, boasted 1.5 million monthly active users on Facebook and was the fastest-growing game on the social network. And in December 2012, Disney acquired South Korea’s Studio Ex – before it had launched any games — as a strategic expansion into the Asian mobile gaming market.

These strategic acquisitions highlight both the growing importance of the South Korean mobile gaming market and the concentration of game development talent in the country. This post serves as a survey of the mobile gaming landscape in South Korea: the largest and most prominent developers and the networks which form the backbone of the market.

Kakao Games

Kakao Games, which launched in South Korea in July 2012 and worldwide in November 2012, is a mobile gaming network operated by Kakao, which also operates KakaoTalk, the most popular OTT (other-the-top) messaging app in South Korea. KakaoTalk has seen 65 million worldwide downloads and is thought to have 95% penetration into the South Korean smartphone market.

Kakao Games operates similarly to other gaming platforms: users are able to download and launch games from within the messaging app, interacting socially with their contacts by challenging friends or playing cooperatively. The games themselves are downloaded through the user’s device app store (such as the iOS App Store or Android’s Google Play), with Kakao Game handling in-game payments (through its own currency, called Chocos) and divvying up the revenue on a 70/30 revenue split between the developer and itself after paying the platform fee. This means that, for an iOS game, Apple would receive its 30% platform fee, and Kakao would take 30% of the remaining revenue.

Kakao Games launched in South Korea to impressive results: over its three month launch period, the platform earned $51.6 million through 82 million downloads by 23 million unique users. $35.3 million of that revenue was earned in October, the month before KakaoTalk launched Kakao Games worldwide.

Of the Top 10 grossing iPhone apps in the South Korean App Store, five have been released for Kakao Games; on Google Play, it is an impressive nine out of ten. Three games launched on the Kakao Games network achieved 10 million downloads in less than two months: Anipang, CandyPang, and Dragon Flight. Outside of South Korea, Kakao Games has an impressive 9 million users in Japan. Kakao has plans to release an additional 100 games for the platform in 2013.

Chinese gaming powerhouse TenCent reportedly owns 13.84% of Kakao, while South Korean online games company WeMade owns 3.8% of the company. Kakao also received angel investment from the CEOs of Ncsoft, NXC, and Neowiz.

Gamevil

Gamevil, a South Korean developer and publisher of mobile games, reported a bumper year for 2012: it recorded revenue of nearly $65 million, up 64% from 2011, with its net income up almost 40%. Gamevil’s development pipeline for 2013 contains 50 titles, with projected total revenues of nearly $100 million. The company derives 70% of its revenues from Android and 39% of total revenues from outside of South Korea.

Of the 43 games released by Gamevil in 2012, 11 were developed in-house and 32 were developed by third-party studios. Gamevil had a 23% “hit ratio” for the year — 10 of the 43 games it published made it to the Top 10 grossing chart on Google Play.

Neowiz

Neowiz is one of the largest online gaming companies in South Korea and the operator of the Pmang portal. Its mobile catalog remained small in 2012 — although it did publish the official mobile game of the 2012 Olympics — but it announced a strategic entry into the Chinese mobile gaming market in mid-July 2012. Neowiz initiated a second round of layoffs last month, owing to the end of its service agreement with EA over FIFA Online and decreasing revenues from its game Crossfire.

NCSoft

NSCoft is the Seoul-based MMO developer behind Lineage, City of Heroes, and the Guild Wars series. NCSoft acquired HotDog Studios, a South Korean mobile games developer, in July of 2011, but, as of November 2012, the company’s non-console, non-desktop revenues remained a minor proportion of the total at 6%. NCSoft has indicated that it will expand further into mobile in 2013 with a mobile version of Lineage, co-developed with GREE.

Hangame

Hangame is an online and mobile gaming portal operated by NHN Corp, which owns a number of internet services in South Korea such as Naver, the country’s most popular search engine, and me2day, an application similar to Twitter. Hangame has been making a concerted push into mobile for the past two years, developing its own titles and publishing others in South Korea and abroad. The company is expanding aggressively, having opened up 200 job requisitions, mostly related to mobile games development, last month.

NHN Corp, the parent company of Hangame, also owns LINE, the messenger app popular in Japan that recently announced it has reached 100 million users globally.

WeMade Entertainment

WeMade is the creator of the popular Legend of Mir MMORPG series, which garnered over 200 million players over its lifetime. The company is apparently planning to launch 40 mobile games in 2013, after having driven $11 million in mobile gaming revenue in 2012. The company’s current mobile catalog is comprised of eight titles, two of which are Top 10 grossing in Google Play in South Korea (both having been released for Kakao Games).

WeMade’s expansion plans for 2013 include China and Japan. WeMade’s US subsidiary, WeMade Entertainment USA, develops and publishes games for the North American and European markets. WeMade recently announced a partnership with WhatsApp, indicating that the messenger app may be building out a games platform of its own.

Andromeda Games

In January 2013, Andromeda Games — developer of the Tap Tap series of games published on Kakao Games, received a $1.3 million investment from IMM Investment and Korea Investment Partners to further expand their catalog of mobile games.（source：ufert）