Stellar Blade tops the game charts in pre-orders on Amazon in the US
Good news ahead of IPO… Prospects for achieving corporate value of KRW 3 trillion
The ‘PC’ trend in the Western gaming world helps Stella Blade’s success
Stella Blade. <시프트업>
[인사이트코리아=신광렬 기자] Shift Up, which has grown rapidly thanks to the success of Nike and is about to IPO, is also receiving enthusiastic responses from around the world for its next product, ‘Stellar Blade’, raising expectations for an increase in corporate value.
According to the industry, Stellar Blade ranked first on the PlayStation 5 best-selling game chart in pre-orders on the US online shopping mall ‘Amazon’ on the 2nd. It appears to be gaining explosive popularity around the world, ranking in the top 3 for pre-orders not only in the United States but also in Taiwan, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Currently competing with Stella Blade in rankings are console games that are gaining popularity around the world, such as ‘Elden Ring’, ‘Persona 3: Reload’, and ‘Final Fantasy’. This is a remarkable achievement for ShiftUp, which has just entered the console market for the first time.
Stellar Blade has been receiving a lot of attention at home and abroad since 2019, when it was first introduced under the name ‘Project Eve’. It received great attention for successfully incorporating the art style of Shift Up CEO Kim Hyeong-tae, a game original artist (illustrator) and director, into the game.
Amid this interest, Shift Up released a demo version of about an hour on the 19th of last month. The demo version of Stella Blade received worldwide praise for its spectacular action and beautiful graphics. The demo version received a response that exceeded expectations, and the number of pre-orders also increased.
The pillar that currently supports Shift Up is the subculture mobile game ‘Goddess of Victory: Nike (hereinafter referred to as Nike)’. Nike has been a huge success in the Japanese market since its launch, contributing decisively to the growth of ShiftUp, which had been in a slump, to the point where it is aiming for an IPO. According to the audit report released by Shift Up on the 1st, the amount Shift Up earned from Nike amounts to approximately 164 billion won.
In this situation, if Stella Blade is also successful, Shift Up can use Nike and Stella Blade as wings to speed up the IPO and see a corporate value of up to 3 trillion won.
Part of Stella Blade in-game scene. <시프트업>
Is the ‘PC’ trend in the West a stepping stone for the success of Stella Blade?
The reason why the initial response to Stella Blade is so meaningful is because the work is receiving great response not only in Asia but also in Western markets such as Europe and the United States. Shift Up’s previous work, ‘Nike’, was popular in the Korean and Japanese markets, but failed to penetrate the Western world, where the popularity of subcultural genres has relatively waned.
In contrast, Stella Blade is currently a hot topic in the US and UK game markets and is maintaining a high pre-order ranking. If this popularity is maintained even after launch, it will be a successful entry into the Western market, which has been difficult for even large domestic game companies.
Some in the industry say that the ‘political correctness’ (PC) craze sweeping the Western cultural market actually contributed to Stella Blade’s popularity.
Currently, the Western gaming industry has a strong tendency to pursue PC, reduce sexual elements in female characters in games, and pursue racial diversity. On the 20th of last month, Microsoft, the owner of the large gaming platform ‘Xbox’, presented guidelines not to discriminate against sex or racism when creating female characters in games, and not to exaggerate the bodies of female characters.
However, as the PC trend has become too strong, it has become difficult to find female characters with attractive appearances in recent Western games under the pretext of preventing the commercialization of women’s sex. Works such as ‘The Last of Us 2’, ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’, and ‘Mass Effect’ recently released in the United States intentionally excluded the sexual appeal of female characters as much as possible, and the facial sculpting was designed in a way that it is difficult to find aesthetic elements. .
This reduced the charm of the characters, causing them to lose interest in the game, and increased antipathy and fatigue toward PCs among users. In this market situation, Stella Blade, which advertised itself as a game for adults aged 19 and over, boasting a voluptuous body, beautiful face, and high level of exposure, was enough to immediately attract the attention and popularity of Western gamers. Criticism of the work continued from critics and some game webzines, but this actually served as noise marketing.
An industry official said, “The popularity of Stella Blade in the West was largely due to the high quality of the game and the PC focus.” He added, “As female female characters have become rare in recent Western games to the level of an ‘endangered species,’ the West has been thirsty for them. “We were able to attract gamers’ attention at once,” he explained.
