What is a mobile game? Our company plan has been to focus on what makes a mobile game a "real" mobile game - games which maximize the unique functions of the platform in order to differentiate the mobile experience from other platforms. Such disruptive ideas are what are needed for the mobile games industry.
However, no more one-button games! I've been talking about one button mobile games for a couple of years, and ever since a lot of mobile games that I've seen have really simplified control mechanisms. The games have low technical barriers, but limits within unlimited purchase carrier models - In America, they say venture capitalists are uninterested in the concept. But I think I've talked long enough about that.
It's time to move on. Although Gamevil is known for innovative one button games, another part of our company is that we originally started out as an online gaming company. Since 2004, however, we switched our entire online game department over to mobile. So I thought it would be good to talk about one of our best selling titles these days, Path of a Warrior.
June 3 Kingdoms (2004)
However, to talk about PoW, I have to talk about the product that the team developed prior to its launch, June 3 Kingdoms.
Back in 2003, there was a lot of talk starting about 3G and location based content. SK Telecom adopted a 2.5 generation EVDO service called June, and were looking for content with 3G and LBS functions. Unlimited data services started at a lower monthly rate of $25 for the first time, and before that, we couldn't really develop a connected mobile game due to the high packet fees. But now, our company could jump in immediately to seek the opportunities.
We did several pitches on these types of contents to SK Telecom, and came to a conclusion to develop a LBS RPG game. We had a team with 15 people in it to develop it, which was the largest we had ever had for a mobile game.
Back in those days, RPG online games such as Lineage from NCSoft were a huge success. There were huge activities on communities and especially trading items, and we thought we could make this happen on mobile, so we made a Multiplayer LBS mobile game named June 3 Kingdoms.
The game used the actual city names from Korea, and you could fight against each other to be the owner of a territory. You could declare war against other users, and they would be notified by SMS. The game had more than 100 items which you could trade. The whole game was about running your own country and the object was to unify all the territories available - you could manage the country, raise and train armies, handle diplomatic issues, find talent, and trade.
June 3 Kingdoms
What Went Right
Support from the Carrier
Such a project wasn't possible by our company alone, and SK Telecom funded us with the initial funding to get this project started, and also provided us with ways to work with the LBS capabilities.
Community Building
Of course discussion and Q&As on the large scale of the game started to get people to write about the game online. Additionally, the game's ally system created groups of people to work together to increase the amount of territory that they owned. And finally, the race to get unique items evoked people to brag about such possessions and really started to create an active community.
Web Support
We monitored closely on how the users were playing (or abusing) the game, and observed all the postings on the web sites. As a result, we found out that the people who were playing the game really enjoyed it, but that there was certain limits to the entry of the game.
What Went Wrong
Game Play
People who were familiar with simulation games and were good at using the numbers in a strategic way were the people who enjoyed it. The majority of people thought that the game was too difficult, however.
Handset
You had to have a June handset in order to play the game, which dropped a good 50% of potential users.
Billing Model
You had to be connected to the network from the beginning of the game, which made the users pay enormous amount of money if they didn't have unlimited data.
In the end, it was technically a very innovative and good game, but commercially not a success.
