Korean game sector looks to cute girls to lure new users

South Korea’s game makers rushed to launch games with cute girl characters to allure fans of Japanese animation as cartoons for the subculture are expanding their influence in the sector.

Vic Game Studios plans to release Black Clover Mobile, which features the Japanese manga series Black Cover, in South Korea and Japan next month, according to industry sources in Seoul on Monday.

The game developer was founded in 2020 by Choi Jae-young, a former chief technology officer at South Korean mobile game maker Netmarble Corp., who led the production of an adventure role-playing game The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross.

Lionheart Studio, a unit of Kakao Games Corp., unveiled the concept art of a raising sim, so-called Project C, based on the elements of Japanese animation girl characters last week. A raising sim is a type of video game where the player plans out what their character does on a daily basis, filling in their agenda and developing them the way the player wants.

Nexon Games Co., a subsidiary of South Korean-Japanese game giant Nexon, started pre-registration for Blue Archive on March 31 in China after securing government approval for the role-playing game on the mainland last month.

BOX-OFFICE HITS

Their competitors at home and abroad already released popular titles with attractive girl characters.

Kakao Games, a unit of South Korea’s mobile platform giant Kakao Corp., launched Uma Musme: Pretty Derby in South Korea developed by Japan’s Cygames.

The social-network mobile game succeeded in attracting users by personifying Japanese racehorses as cute girls to boost the fun of collecting characters and horse racing.

Genshin Impact, a global hit game developed by China’s miHoYo, also plays on the title’s strength of cute girl characters in Japanese animation.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com
 

Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.