[Korea] 5 Key Trends for 2009 – ① The Invasion of the Chinese Games

1) Chinese games, 2) Zombie, 3) non-targeting systems, 4) automouse, and 5) browser-based games are the key trends for 2009 in the Korean online gaming market.

Today is about the first installment in the five-part series- the invasion of Chinese online games.

This year Korean publishers rushed to publish Chinese games; Pixel Soft’s Journey to Fairyland aka JTF (심선: Kor, 寻仙: Chi) by CJ Internet, Perfect World’s Murim Story (무림외전: Kor, 武林外传: Chi) by EYAInteractive, FuLaDe Entertainment’s 天尊 Online (천존협객전: Kor) by Liveplex are cases in point. These games have been launched in Korea during the first half of 2909.

And there are more to come: Beijing Game World Tech’s Battlestar Online and Perfect World’s ZuxianOnline (诛仙: Chi, 주신: Kor) by CJ Internet, Perfect World’s RedCliff (赤壁: Chi, 적벽: Kor) by KTH(Paran), Sohu’s 天龍八部 (천룡팔부: Kor) by Alt1, and The9’s World of Fight (名将三国WOF: Chi)

Initially, the success of Perfect World (完美世界: Chi, 완미세계: Kor) in Korea led to the flourish of Chinese games. On top of that as Korean players found Chinese games alternative to Korean games because of a) the high quality and b) somewhat familiar yet still new contents, Chinese games filled the void caused by delayed Korean games. Most Chinese games brought to Korea had already gone through the phases of commercial services in China so the stability and contents availability won Korean publishers over as well. Towards the second half of 2009, however, the blockbuster Korean games started dampening popularity of Chinese game.

All in all, with Chinese games lined up in the pipeline and major updates for existing games, Chinese games are expected to flourish in the Korean online gaming market.