Korean MMORPGs enter US market
January 13, 2008 by Joel Tan
Filed under Asian MMO, Fiesta Online, MMORPG, MMORPG News, Tencent
An online game publisher in the United States has raised US$11 million for its expansion efforts in preaching the virtues of Asian MMORPGs in the Western World. Leading the investors in Outspark is Tencent, a Chinese Internet portal and instant messaging company.
In an interview with Worlds In Motion, Outspark executives Susan Choe and Nick Foster said the company’s primary goal was to help PC-based online games find the same market in North America as they currently enjoy in Asia.
In its first five months of operation, with titles such as Fiesta Online and Secret of the Solstice—both Korean-made MMORPGs—leading the foray, Outspark has attracted over one million registered users.
Here are some quotable quotes from the two gaming moguls:
Susan Choe: When I was in Yahoo!’s corporate development, what I did was basically fly around the world and see where we could spend money, to expedite Yahoo!’s growth, globally. And saw the games out in Korea in 2000. And I thought: “Man, you know, if there was an infrastructure to be able to deliver this content back home—meaning, North America, US—that would be a great business to be in.”
Nick Foster: Our goal really is to open up Outspark as a publisher to global game developers, and really look for games that meet these criteria of: community games, good monetization strategy, very good developers who can continually put out new content and really are in for a long haul for a game, and a community that likes that game. Korea, right now, is just the most experienced at that. You see great game engines there that really understand how this process is built in.
Wow, intriguing, really. I’ll delve a little deeper into the games that Outspark is publishing and come up with FAQ sheets and other posts. In the meantime, let’s take a look at Outspark’s trailer for Fiesta Online.
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