From Passion to Profit: The Surprising Games That Raked in the Cash

There is a very famous “MEME” in the Korean game industry. The question is, “Will it make money?”

This “meme” started when an employee of a certain company asked about another game on “Blind”, a social media site aimed at employees, “Does it make money?”

Dollar image (Source: Shutterstock)

This is a “meme” that often appears whenever a game is released with a system that maximizes the company’s profits rather than fun, as it gives the impression that a company that makes games that are supposed to be fun sees the games simply like money, this statement clearly reflects the behavior of some game companies that seek to obtain a stable profit by following existing successful games rather than providing novelty through a bold challenge, so it is used even in games where the intention is to to make a profit simply by adding stable elements.

By this speaker’s standards, there are many games in the world that don’t make money. Even if it doesn’t seem like it will make money, there are “games that really make money” on the market because the developer’s efforts and new attempts pay off.

Bow cooperation (data source – Donga Game)
●’Bow Battle’ created a new wind in the common visual novel genre

The “visual novel” is a genre of game that continues the story with text, illustrations, CG and graphic effects. Because games can be made with little labor and money, hundreds of games come out every year, and it’s a genre that’s difficult to make much profit from.

“Bow Battle,” published by Taiwanese developer Obb Studio, was a huge success by mixing elements of martial arts and martial arts into the visual novel genre. The peculiarity of this game is that it features a really ugly looking protagonist. And in all media, including films and novels, that have appeared so far, their appearance is extremely unattractive.

The current appearance of the protagonist (data source – Game Donga) This appearance of the protagonist is related to the cliché of martial arts novels in which a despised character meets talent, grows and eventually reaches the top, providing considerable pleasure for the user . Additionally, the various minigame-style battles that appear in the game, the incredibly attractive characters, and the training content combine to make you feel like you’re reading a well-written martial arts novel.

The fun of this game has spread among users through word of mouth, achieving great success in the first half of the year, selling over 700,000 copies in just one month. As a result, Obb Studio, which had only two people working on the game for six years and one of the developers even fell ill with illness, signed a contract with a large publisher. Given its popularity, it has been revealed that a version with additional content will be developed, further raising expectations.

First descendant (data source – Gioco Donga)
●The first Korean shooting game “First Descendant”

‘First Descendant’ is also one of the games that takes a considerable risk. This is because it was a game that challenged a new genre called shooter in the Korean market, which focused on online and mobile MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games).

This shooter is a genre that combines the fun of third-person FPS (shooting game) and role-playing game. This genre must be able to consistently provide high-quality content and must also implement the shooting and action gameplay of a high-level FPS game. Additionally, MMORPG operations such as checking your balance and managing your server are also necessary.

First Descendant (data source: Game Donga) Furthermore, the selection of paid content is narrower than that of MMORPGs, so it is difficult to expect high profits. Despite these conditions, Nexon Games, a Nexon developer, bravely released the shooter game “First Descendant” last July.

Despite many people’s concerns, ‘The First Descendant’ recorded 229,000 concurrent users on Steam (around 230,000) soon after its release, ranking it 2nd most played games and 1st highest sales. He heaved a sigh.

Attractive characters (data source – Game Donga) The recent update of the skin (character’s outfit) created a stir among foreign users and generated numerous “memes”. Currently, “The First Descendant” is in a somewhat stagnant situation after the Season 1 update. Since it is a work that showed enormous momentum at the beginning of its release, it is expected to record a increase in popularity in future updates.

Manor Road (data source – Donga Game)
●Manner Road, a solo developer challenge no one has ever attempted before

“Manor Lord”, published by “Slavik Magic”, is a simulation game in which you become a medieval lord and manage a village. You can turn villages into cities by managing resources and production, expand your territory through conquest, and there’s even a combat system that lets you manage a large army.

This game was developed with Unreal Engine 4 and shows very beautiful graphics. The amazing thing is that he developed all this on his own. In the case of single-person development work, 2D graphics or pixel graphics are often chosen due to manpower or funding limitations, but ‘Manor Lord’ was developed with graphics of the same quality as AA level games , with a huge impact.

Manor Road (data source – Game Donga) Of course, we received external help for details such as graphics, but the central aspects of the game’s design and programming were developed only by Greg Stigzen from ‘Slavik Magic’.

“Manor Road” sold more than 1 million copies in just two days after being released as a Steam Early Access service, and the number of concurrent users reached 170,000. This sales volume is still increasing. Many users are eager to see what kind of rating it will receive upon its official release at the end of the early access period.

In addition to the works presented above, there are countless cases in the gaming market where new attempts and bold challenges that have never existed before have actually made money.

Since last year, Korean game companies have been preparing to go beyond mobile MMORPGs and release masterpieces that are as good as overseas AA games on various platforms such as PC and consoles. I can’t wait to see if their new attempts will be able to overcome the suspicion of “Will it make money?”