Aside from high exports, Korean games are often ranked among top of MMO lists in other countries, such as Smile Gate's Cross Fire in China, KOG's Grand Chase in Brazil, Mgame's Yulgang in Thailand, Joy Max' Lost Saga in Indonesia and Dragonfly's Special Force in the Philippines. In terms of mobile games, products from Gamevil and Com2us, the largest mobile game companies in South Korea, frequently stay at the top of the App Store list in America, Europe and Japan and dominate the top 10 list.
In the meantime, Korean game companies are more and more influential in the world. As Nexon went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on December 14th, Nexon has become the third largest game company globally, just behind Blizzard Entertainment and EA Games. Nexon's sales will reach 1.26 trillion won (approx. US$ 1.08 billion) this year, and its overseas sales will occupy 65%, according to a senior official at Nexon.
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The high popularity of Korean MMOs in the world is attributed to their high quality. Nexon's The Kingdom of the Winds released in 1996 is the earliest graphic MMO. NCsoft's Lineage has integrated the concept of MMORPG. Adhering to the principle of "competition and creation", Korean game companies are ahead of their peers in development and creativeness. South Korea even takes a lead in mobile games, tablet games and social games.
As of Q3, respectively 75%, 56%, 54% and 53% of the total sales of Wemade, YD Online, Webzen and Neowiz Games come from exports. These companies have transformed themselves from traditional game developers to MMO exporters. Benefited from exports, Neowiz Games has surpassed NCsoft and become NO.2 in the game industry in South Korea. Smile Gate, the developer of Cross Fire has even become one of the top 5 Korean game companies with the help of CrossFire.
Export is the national strategy of South Korea, and cultural and product exports have revived South Korea's economy. Particularly, Korean game companies have reaped the largest benefits for their huge development funds mostly come from export sales. Along with the expansion of the global market, Korean games will still take the lead and are expected to create greater industrial value.
