Posts Tagged ‘korean market’

gPotato serves up free-to-play cart racing MMO Tales Runner

Friday, October 17th, 2008

Gala-Net Inc. has recently announced that the beta doors are open on the North American version of it’s new cart racing title: Tales Runner.  Developed by Rhaon Entertainment, players can sign up and download the game client at Gala-Net’s gpotato.com portal.

Originally inspired by Nintendo’s Mario Kart, Tales Runner is a free-to-play cart racer MMO focuses on a number of unique features and distinguishes itself from the crowd with a unique community interaction experience.  Racing events are not arbitrary, as Tales Runner places players in teams, encouraging community interaction, cooperation, and good sportsmanship.

Additional differentiators include:

  • The Item Alchemy: This crafting system allows players to collect special cards at the end of each race. Combining these cards creates the most powerful and unique weapons in the game.
  • The Tales Runner Leveling System: Tales Runner features a unique, rewarding leveling system. Each time a player reaches a new level they are rewarded with in-game currency as well as access to new racing rooms.
  • Customization: With 4 starting characters to choose from, 4 more to be released, and hundreds of different items, accessories and outfits
  • Tales Land Park: A central “Town” where players can hang out, show off their gear, and exchange tips with each other. There are also mini games within the park that rewards players with items and in-game currency.
  • Unique Racing Modes: There are several race modes available to players; 8 Player Mode, Team Mode, Relay Race, 30 Player Mode, and the crowd favorite, Survival Mode, where players must race toward their screen rather than away. Each Survival Mode course features a Boss Monster that eliminates players from the race with the slightest touch

A runaway hit in it’s home Korean market as well as in Japan and Taiwan, Tales Runner features reoccurring characters that take part in races based on a selection of maps inspired by fairy tales ranging from The Frog Prince to Momotaro, a Japanese favorite.  Supporting up to 30 players in individual and team modes, players will face obstacles, ski slopws and even monsters in their races.

And as with any good MMO, Gala-Net Inc. plans on rolling out a number of new content additions via in-game ‘Chapters’ through out the year.  These content updates are slated to include a number of new maps, items (for sale of course) and features.    Updates will also include a function similar to an achievment system along with alchemy, couple, fortune and family features.

When asked about the microtransactions present within Tales Racer and if they will present a playing advantage, Rhaon Entertainment producer Alan Hardie says,

…We don’t want to favor our cash users by giving them an advantage over the others. We consider all of them to be valuable, and we want to treat each one fairly.
There will be some things that can only be purchased with gPotatoes, but they are mainly of a cosmetic nature. Some provide various stats or bonuses, but we will offset this advantage by providing similar ones anyone can obtain…

Tales Runner is now open for beta testing in the North American market via Gala-Net Inc’s portal gPotato.  To sign up and download the client, visit Tales Runner at talesrunner.gpotato.com.

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Super Boom Boom 2 to feature microtransactions

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

The LA based publisher GAMEVIL has recently announced plans to launch Super Boom Boom 2: Space Adventure with a microtransaction business model.

Not newcomers to the mobile gaming market, GAMEVIL’s ‘Baseball Superstars 2008’ is one of the top mobile titles in the Korean market.  ‘Baseball Superstars 2008’ has clocked in 1.3 million downloads within the first 10 months of its release.

The game download is expected to cost $3 USD.  The average G-Points purchase is estimated at $1.50 USD, a 50% addition revenue stream, adding an extra 2M USD to the 4M USD generated from the downloads alone.  Overall, GAMEVIL reports that microtransactions have boosted individual games’ revenues by 30-40 percent, while one title in particular has seen increase of over 300 percent.

Super Boom Boom 2 itself may not be breaking any new ground by way of it’s five levels, unlockable extras and online high score tables, it’s microtransaction system is noteworthy.  Players will be able to purchase ‘G-Points’ at GAMEVIL and use this in-game currency to purchase new levels, items and mini-games.

With a market penetration reaching over 90 handsets, Super Boom Boom 2 will be the first American game with a microtransaction platform in place that will reach over 90 percent of all available handsets including the gaming elusive Blackberry and Windows Mobile platform.

Super Boom Boom 2 is expected to reach said mobile devices later this month.

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Approximately 67% of Korean users in their 20s purchase paid digital content

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

According to a new study compiled by Pearl Research and recently published by Research and Markets, approximately 67% of Korean users in their 20s purchase paid digital content.  They forecast that the Korean market will exceed $1.7 billion by 2011.

While not surprising, the study found that casual games that are free-to-play, easy to learn, and can be played in “micro-slices”, i.e. games that can be played in ten minute or less segments at a time.

Some highlighted key findings from the study include:

  • South Korea has a sophisticated information technology (IT) infrastructure with 80% of households connected to the Internet.
  • Korea has one of the highest adoption rates of purchasing virtual items and micro-transactions. Approximately 67% of those in the 20-30 age cohort purchased online paid content. Of those who have purchased digital content, 91% purchased music while 39% purchased community and avatar items
  • A common strategy in Korea is the operation of large game portals that provide a wide selection of games, including massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), casual, and web board games all within one convenient site. Top game portals such as CJ Internet’s Netmarble, NHN’s Hangame, and Neowiz’s Pmang can attract 500,000 to 1 million unique visitors a day. More than 11 million Korean adults visit game portals every month, according to this reports estimates.
  • While South Korea has a robust games market, critical challenges include intense domestic competition; prevalence of “me-too” or derivative titles; challenges in expanding overseas to the US and China; and rising development costs. The “Games Market in Korea” report provides an in-depth analysis of the Korean online games market and contains an executive summary; 2007 to 2011 forecasts for the online games platforms; inhibitors and drivers to growth; deep marketplace analysis; discussion of key market players, and strategic conclusions.

With all the flurry surrounding Korea’s neighbor to the west, it’s often easy to lose site of the ‘other’ gigantic market in Asia.  With a 67% purchase rate, Pearl’s prediction of $1.7 billion by 2011 could be spot on.  The question is…who’s handling all these microtransactions, and how do you and your title reach the market before it’s too late?  The answer is already staring you in the face.  fatfoogoo can bring your title to the Korean marketplace in days rather than months.  With out vast experience in multi currency transactions, fraud detection and prevention, and plug and play integration, we can help YOU today!

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EA’s Battlefield Heroes will be a phenomenon

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

The numbers don’t lie.  The free to play, microtransaction based gaming business model works.  It not only works, but it’s making lots and lots of people lots and lots of money.  The North American market has been less than speedy in accepting this form of play.

Nexon entered the market first, and brought titles like Kart Rider and Maplestory to an audience that had never experienced this form of play.  So when big guns EA went out on the ledge and said, “Hey…we’re going to build a top notch game, able to hold it’s own at any shooter table, oh…and it’ll be free to play,” the reception was a bit lukewarm.  Granted, this has to do with the title not actually being ‘out’ on the market yet, but as momentum begins to grow, I’ve personally noticed more and more ‘w00t!  can’t wait to get my hands on this!’ comments springing up across the myriad of sites I cover each day.

Now I’m not about to put myself in the same category as David Perry, but it seems that we’re thinking the same thing on this one.  Perry recently sat down with GamesIndustry.biz and let the fan flag fly.  “I think Battlefield Heroes is going to be a huge hit, it’s going to be a bit of a phenomenon.  I have incredible faith that EA is going to pull this off.”  Perry continued, believing that most people are underestimating the project.   “For them to actually make that announcement was huge, I thought that was one of the biggest statements that EA has made in years and it just went over people’s heads.”

Building upon this, Perry noted that EA is still at heart, a retail company.  The make games, produce them, put them in pretty boxes and ship them off to retailers to them put their tax on, and pass along to the consumer.  Announcing a free-to-play, download it if you like game is not a great relationship builder with said retail outlets.  EA has already invested in the Korean market and The9 in China, but keeping it under the radar.  Battlefield Heroes is in fact, NOT EA’s first free-to-play, but rather the one that most North Americans have heard of.  EA built FIFA Online as a free MMO.  A smart move to test the international waters, as most North Americans favor their football involving a brown pigskin and not the round black and white ball the rest of the world sees as a football.

When asked about the free-to-play model itself, Perry said that the model actually allows for the potential of even more revenue generated compared to the traditional model.  “It’s a whole different world you enter when you get into free-to-play, it’s like the industry that we’ve all been missing and the second thing we’ve been missing is the idea of letting people pay what they want,” he explained.

“I’ve made so many games and we never, ever had the idea that people would pay more than the price of the game for the game, no one would pay over $60 if it’s a $60 game. On our 2Moons game, you’ve got people that spend $3,000 happily, and if we had more stuff for them to buy, they would buy it.”

As a point of comparison, most retail games sell for around $60, while Acclaim’s free to play games average a $75 take/person/game.

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