2010 was indeed a busy year for social game developers in Korea.  New social gaming platforms were launched by major portal sites, many new start-ups as well as online game developers have entered the market, and success stories from small start-ups were introduced here and there.  With the growing interest from both inside and outside the market, information about the current trend becomes more pressing.  And still, the thought that useful information must be shared around has unchanged and thanks to Nate AppStore for being on the same side by sharing precious information with everyone.

* Download the full version of “Korean Social Game Market Trend Report (2010, 4th Quarter)”  - English / Korean

* Download the full version of “Korean Social Game Market Trend Report (2010, 4th Quarter)”  - English / Korean

Rubicon Games’ first city building simulation game ‘Star City’ has finally launched in Nate AppStore this Thursday.  Adding a bit of twist to contemporary city-builders, Star City requires users to explore the hidden planets to mine various minerals, which are used in general construction activities.  Moreover, after exploring different planets, space shuttles bring cute aliens along with them, adding more space-like essence to the game.

Besides the game itself, Star City is also the first game in Nate platform to introduce NateOn Buddy API, which we mentioned in our earlier post.  Contemporary games have only allowed 1-chon network access, which only allows up to 300 friends to play with.  NateOn, however, has no limits to number of friends on list, significantly expanding the pool of individual network.  “NateOn API will provide a much easier environment for users to manage their list of social gaming partners without hindering privacy issues  related to 1-chon network,” says Geo-sung Lee, senior game director of Star City. 

“I’m very happy and proud to present our first city-building game, ‘Star City’ to our users.  Our team has put a lot of effort into this game, especially on sustaining stability.”

Since action speaks more than thousand words, please try out our latest title ‘Star City’ and tell us what you think! Have fun then! :D

14 Dec. 2010, Nate launched its new mobile social gaming service, Nate AppStore Beta Application for Androids.  Now available for download at T-Store, Nate AppStore Beta Application allows users to access social games on Nate AppStore in Adroid 2.2 (Froyo) devices.

 With just one time log-in, users can access their favorite games in “My Apps” page or full list of games in “Apps List” page.  Game data as well as friends list is also interlinked with web-based platform, which makes it convenient for users to play and manage their games anywhere at any time.  Users can also purchase virtual items with Dotori just like they do on web.  

As a tip from Nate, puzzle/quiz games are more suitable for mobile devices since it generates smaller traffic compared to other genres.  Initially taking off with six games, Nate AppStore expects more and more games to join the mobile stream.  Since smart phone users mark up to 6.8 million (aprox. 15% of Korean population) and has grown 8.5 times the previous year (2009), this trend is expected to enlarge the social gaming pie even bigger.  Androids appear to be strong in the Korean smart phone market, yet to maximize the coverage of smart phone users, developing mobile service for iPhone is pressing.  Nevertheless, there is no doubt that taking the initiative to expand to mobile devices is a great plus to both Nate and developers.

*** View introductory movie clip of Nate AppStore Beta Application ***

Korea’s biggest international game trade show G-Star was successfully held in Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (Bexco) from 18 to 21 Nov. 2010.  Turning 6th year, the annual game show hosted over 316 companies and 300,000 visitors worldwide.

As part of the show, social game seminar was held on 19 November, inviting guest speakers from major foreign companies such as Playdom, RockYou! Asia, Playfish, Kabam, 6 Waves, and Second Wave.  From projecting the future of social gaming industry in Asia to publishing games in Facebook, social gaming experts delivered insightful presentations to the show.

Moreover, 2010 G-Star has also provided a good field of opportunities to both foreign and Korean developers to expand their businesses abroad through B2B meetings. 193 exhibitors from 22 countries have signed over 166 contracts, bringing down about 200 million USD.  Business parties were also hosted throughout the show for direct social networking.

Overall, 2010 G-Star was a great success.  With more and more foreign developers participating, G-Star has fully earned its reputation as the leading international game festival.  Also mobile and social games have established themselves as an important genre, joining the mainstream of the gaming industry.  In 2011 G-Star, we hope to see more social gaming events and exhibitions in the show.

GStar game exhibition is a game show and trade exhibition held in Busan annually. This year, as with years past, will include some household names in gaming, Blizzard, NCSoft, XBOX360, Nexon, Sony and a long list of domestic and international game studios. According to the exhibition website, a number of Facebook social game developers and publishers will also be at this year’s event which makes it more interesting (and possibly educational) to the general audience as well as other local social games developers who will be attending this event. Hopefully, this opportunity will give us and local developers a chance to interact with and learn from these Facebook developers despite their recent lack of success and presence in the Korea market.

Rubicon Games will be making our first trip to this event and will be there from Thursday (Nov. 18) to Saturday (Nov 20). We will not be exhibiting but will be around the floors and other events there. If any of our readers want to talk to us about the industry, games or the recent Korea social game report we published while we are down there, feel free to contact me, angus at playrubi dot com. Or if you are in Seoul before or after the exhibition and would like to find us then, you are more than welcome to do so! Hope to see some of you guys there!

Unlike Facebook and other major social game platform, not too many about Korean social game industry is revealed to the public.  On one hand, it may be an “Asian courtesy” for platform service providers to hide its customers’ private information from their competitors.  On the other hand, it may create an entrance barrier and suppress new developers from entering the market.  Nevertheless, believing in the fact that freedom of information is harmless to fair market competition, Rubicon Games Inc. suggested Nate AppStore Open Social Team to share their statistics and information as much as possible.  Gratefully, Nate AppStore agreed upon revealing more information for both domestic and foreign developers who are interested in publishing their games in Korea.  However, please note that stats were given in bundles of genre, due to privacy issues.

Download the full version of “Korean Social Game Market Trend Report (2010, 3rd Quarter)”  - English / Korean

Download the full version of “Korean Social Game Market Trend Report (2010, 3rd Quarter)”  - English / Korean

Shooting Star was launched together with Naver Social Apps, the latest social game platform.  Initially published throughout Naver Cafes, Shooting Star is now “shooting hopes” to charities in the form of online donation.  “Happy Bean” it is called, which is an online charity website sponsored by Naver.  Members of Naver Cafe can donate “Happy Beans”, which is also the term for a unit of donation which cost 100 KRW per each.  Collected beans from each Cafe is then donated to variety of organizations in need.

To motivate the culture of giving, Shooting Star is now shooting Happy Beans to reach out for those in needs.   The best Cafe with the highest sum of individual scores is rewarded with 10,000 Happy Beans (approximately $1000 worth) and every Cafe playing Shooting Star can participate in this donation competition.  Competition will take place for two weeks (15 Oct – 31 Oct) and the final winner will be presented on 1 November.  

Play social games to increase social welfare!  We look forward to seeing the love and care spread throughout the online communities with Shooting Star :)

The biggest portal service, Naver, launched its AppStore ”Social Apps“ on 30 Sept. 2010.  Is it a coincidence or an intention?  Social App’s launch date overlaps with that of Nate, which launched its Nate AppStore last year in late September.  Whatever the underlying meaning may be, Naver’s presence itself has great implications in the Korean social gaming industry.  Before any further approach, understanding of Naver is prerequisite.

Naver, which initially started off as a search engine back in 1999, now expands its business model to multiple platforms such as blog, cafe, and Me2Day.  According to Naver, currently they have over 18 million blogs, 6 million Cafes, and 2 million Me2Days (Me2Day is a similar service to Twitter), excluding potential users who simply use the search engine without subscription.  As mentioned in one of our previous blog posts, Naver attracted many developers (both domestic and foreign) to publish their games on their platforms by giving various incentives.  As a result, 32 developers have published 47 apps by the first day of launch.

Naver’s Social Apps, however, takes a different approach in virality.  Utilizing its blogs is somewhat similar to that of Nate’s Cyworld, but as Nate AppStore expanded its pool from Nate to NateOn, Naver uses its 6 million “Cafes” as a leverage.  Naver Cafe is a name, which refers to user community or clubs.  What is significant about Naver Cafe is that games are played within the Cafe members only.  In other words, even if someone plays the same game in two different Cafes, his/her user data will be different in each container.  This makes it difficult for users to play simulation games that requires mass storage of user data.  Thus simulation games, which requires continuous play time, will tend to lean towards blogs and Me2Day networks.  Another interesting feature is that the Cafe master or staff members have full authority to choose which games to be installed in their Cafes.  Big Cafes with more than million members, will have bargaining power over game developers who are willing to acquire big pool of users.  Are we expecting some kind of lobby in the social game biz now?  No one knows.

(Picture reference: Naver)

Naver, the leading portal service versus Nate, the leading SNS is indeed a big match to watch.  Whether they will lead the way as a partner or a rival, Korea’s social gaming industry has definitely entered its second phase of growth, providing more rooms for developers and publishers to penetrate in the market.  As a developer, we look forward to Naver’s success as a platform provider.

Nate AppStore opend its NateOn Messenger Buddy API in Sept. 2010.  In one of our previous blog post, we introduced NateOn Messenger and mentioned how Nate AppStore could utilize it to break through viral issues it’s been wrestling with.  It is worthy of praise that NateOn is making progress by expanding its user pool from “1 chon network” (1 chon refers to friends list within Cyworld) to NateOn users, but on the other hand, it also made the gaming environment more complex for both developers and users.

Currently Nate AppStore games are developed based on Cyworld friends called “1 chon”.  Games were then limited by Nate to only 300 1chons.  With the introduction of NateOn Messenger Buddy API, users can now play games with 1000 friends and  developers can now choose to develop games with:

1)     separate network (1 chon/ NateOn) and separate personal data
2)     separate network (1 chon/ NateOn) but inter-linked personal data
3)     combined network (1 chon + NateOn) but separate personal data
4)     combined network (1 chon + NateOn) and inter-linked personal data 

As such, there are many different ways to play the game now, and developers are now open to variety of models to choose from.  Aside from the methods listed above, developers can also utilize NateOn Messenger to develop synchronous games.  Since messengers provide real-time log-in information of friends, developers can utilize synchronous functions in their games more flexibly.

The change in the platform, however, can also be a good opportunity for many developers.  The ability to grasp and capitalize the shift is pressing for those smaller developers hidden under the shadow of the big players.  The change of development environment applies to everyone and it’s the developers’ ability  to stand out among the rest.   This is the point of time where creativity kicks in.

Overall, NateOn Messenger’s 35 million user pool is indeed an attractive in-house resource for Nate.  Taking the initiative to expand seems to be a half success since we can expect some spillover of users from one container to the other.  Moreover, synchronism is now a new option for developers who are willing expand their field of genres even more.  Despite of all the new features, the floor is now yielded to the developers to show everything they’ve got.   We look forward to applying some creative ideas on how we could utilize the change of rules in our upcoming games.

Recently there were some small but big changes in Shooting Star.  The level of difficulty needed some fine-tuning (less than 50 out of 35,000 users cleared all 50 stages) and the need for rank board was pressing.  Users can now use two SOS items at the same time, whereas before it was limited to only 1 item per game. 

The happier news is that users can now finally check out their rank for each stage.  Before the update, users couldn’t keep track of their best scores for each stage, which made it difficult for users to break their record.  However, users can now review their scores and tryout for the weekly top 25 rankers!  What are you waiting for?  I want to see your name up there!