‘Minecraft’ is known as a synonym for sandbox and metaverse games in the world, including Korea.
Minecraft, which sold 230 million copies as of last year across platforms, started as a PC indie game released by Swedish programmer Markus Persson in 2009.
Persson noticed the enthusiastic response of early gamers, and established a game development studio ‘Mojang’ the following year, and added new content after commercializing Minecraft.
Microsoft (MS) paid attention to the potential of Minecraft to generate high sales through word of mouth among gamers without marketing. Microsoft acquired Mojang Studio in 2014 for $2 billion (about 2 trillion won).
Since then, Minecraft has grown into a global popular game enjoyed by people of all ages through PC, mobile, console, and augmented reality (AR), thanks to Microsoft’s rich infrastructure and development know-how.
◇ Indie game where even a single developer can make a ‘million seller’
There have been many cases in Korea where small production teams make and present indie games. However, there were many games that received attention in the app market as ‘Sparkle’ but were forgotten due to lack of completeness, follow-up support, and global release.
Large game companies were also busy investing their manpower and budget for online game development, so they were less interested in single-player indie games.
However, the situation changed as indie games that were successful overseas were introduced to Korea through the PC game platform ‘Steam’ and game broadcasting platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.
One-man developer Toby Fox’s ‘Undertale’ (2015) and Eric Baron’s ‘Stardew Valley’ (2016) received explosive responses from the gamer community at home and abroad before and after their release. The two games recorded 7 million and 13 million copies of cumulative sales on Steam, respectively, and are still being actively played to this day.
Even indie games are a representative example of the possibility of securing sales and fandom comparable to that of large corporations if they have unique materials and a certain level of perfection.
◇ Neowiz Smilegate, actively publishing indie games
According to the game industry on the 28th, domestic game companies are also jumping into discovering domestic indie games that will fascinate the global market.
Neowiz established a publishing organization in 2019 and is supporting overall quality management (QA), platform launch, language localization, and marketing by discovering competitive indie games.
‘Skull: The Hero Slayer’, a side-scrolling indie game produced by indie developer ‘South Four Games’ and published by Neowiz, surpassed 1 million copies in Steam sales for the first time in a domestic indie game earlier this year. Recently, it has been included in Microsoft’s subscription-type game service, Xbox Game Pass, and is increasing its recognition in the global market.
In the second quarter of this year, the indie game ‘San Butterfly’ developed by Wonder Potion is scheduled to be officially released on Steam under the publishing of Neowiz.
An official from Neowiz said, “We provide extensive support so that the development team can focus on game development only. If necessary, we also provide office space.” “The company can serve good games, so it is a win-win for each other.”
Smilegate also supports indie game developers through ‘Stove Indy’, which was first introduced in 2019, and sells domestic and foreign indie games through its game launcher ‘Stove’.
In addition, there is also a ‘creator community’ where indie game developers can gather to introduce their games and hire developers. Overseas indie games that have excellent work quality but are not translated into Korean are translated into Korean and distributed through consultation with the producers.
A Smilegate official said, “Currently, Stove only provides indie game distribution functions, but we plan to expand it to a social platform where creators can communicate and share their work in the future.”
As large corporations actively engage in indie game publishing, the door of opportunity is widening for indie game developers as well.
An official familiar with the industry said, “The most difficult point in the development process for small development teams is the creation and promotion of resources used in game production.”
“As the number of companies that help with publishing increases, opportunities are increasing, and the recognition of Korean indie games in the global market is also increasing,” he said.
Industry Team press@jeonpa.co.kr
