Korean game developers look to revive heyday with reboots of old hits

South Korea’s game developers are rushing to remake classic titles to recover profitability by appealing to former fans with hit intellectual property developed in the 2000s and 2010s.

Mobile game developer Netmarble Corp. plans to launch Seven Knights Idle Adventure, a role-playing game (RPG) that progresses with no interaction from the player, in September, according to industry sources on Thursday.

The idle game for mobile platforms is based on Netmarble’s flagship Seven Knights, an RPG that has attracted 60 million users across the world since its release in 2014.

“It is expected to succeed by building on the original title’s strength, as well as through improvements and supplements to meet current trends,” said a company official.

Netmarble is working on a project to remake Seven Knights to mark the 10th anniversary of its release next year.

Com2us Corp., the creator of the global hit game Summoners War, last month released Ace Fishing: Crew, a sequel to Ace Fishing: Wild Catch, which has lured 70 million gamers worldwide since its introduction in 2014.

The company also released a mobile version of Mini Game Heaven – a casual game targeted at regular smartphone users, not hobbyist gamers. Mini Game Heaven has had sensational popularity with a cumulative 19 million downloads for all series since Com2us was first launched in 2005.

NO MONEY FOR NEW TITLES?

The remakes of legendary games often allow developers to attract users easily without marketing activities, industry sources said. The costs of investments and marketing for such titles are less than half of the expenses for new games.

Netmarble and Com2us were likely to have focused on remakes as they did not have enough money due to sluggish earnings to develop new titles, industry sources said. Netmarble reported an operating loss of 37.2 billion won ($28.2 million) in the April-June period, extending its deficit spree to a sixth straight quarter. Com2us also logged a loss of 12.4 billion won in the three months.

Some reintroduced games disappointed users, indicating that such a strategy is not a a sure-fire solution to recover profitability.

Com2us in June released Zenonia Chronobreak, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on its popular Zenonia game series that has attracted 63 million global users since its launch in 2008.

The remake, however, was nearly a box-office failure in the early stage due to unstable service and a low degree of completion.

“We plan to improve the game with a major update or balance adjustment in the middle of next month,” said a senior executive of its holding company Com2uS Holdings Corp. during an earnings call on Aug. 3.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.