In South Korea and other Asian countries, new MMORPGs from old brands such as Blade & Soul, Lineage, Black Desert or Bless are constantly appearing. Gaming and the MMORPG genre have shifted there into the “Mobile” sector.
This is what is happening in South Korea: The latest hype title in South Korea is an old acquaintance, “Blade and Soul.” The game was already released in 2012 in South Korea for PC. But now it is again on everyone’s lips. The new installment isn’t even out yet.
On December 6, 2018, “Blade & Soul Revolution” is supposed to be released. The stated goal: to be as close to the PC version as possible.
The mobile boom for MMORPGs in South Korea continues
So successful is Blade & Soul Revolution before its launch: To cope with the rush of character reservations alone, Netmarble has opened 20 new servers. All 50 servers initially planned were already fully booked after 4 days, they report.
It can be assumed that “Blade & Soul Revolution” will be as much of a hit as “Lineage 2 Revolution”, the last game with a similar pattern from Netmarble. Lineage 2 Revolution broke sales records in South Korea in 2016.
In order to finish it quickly, a employee of Netmarble even worked himself to death.
This is the pioneer in the mobile sector: The head of Netmarble, Bang Jun-Hyuk, is considered a visionary and the Korean Steve Jobs. He has seen the mobile trend coming for a long time.
Bang therefore focused on mobile from the beginning. Even when the infrastructure in Korea was not yet set up for mobile and players were still flocking in droves to PC cafés, he wanted to go mobile. That initially failed.
However, with action and strategy games based on Disney brands like Marvel, Netmarble later became wealthy.
Some years ago, Netmarble then discovered MMORPGs with strong licenses for themselves. Since Netmarble does not own any “old” PC MMORPGs, they made a deal with NCSoft and are porting their old “brands” into new mobile games: first Lineage 2 Revolution in 2016, and now Blade and Soul Revolution in 2018.
Mobile variants revive Lineage and Black Desert
PC MMORPGs are transitioning: But classic PC companies are also making their money in Korea now on mobile.
NCSoft itself has re-released the classic “Lineage” as “Lineage M” in 2017. This saved their financial year, after their own PC MMORPGs started to age.
“Lineage 2 M” is to follow. NCSoft also plans new mobile games for their brands Aion and also a mobile game for Blade & Soul, which will be called “Blade & Soul 2”.
PC players can still hope for “Project TL”, which is the unofficial Lineage 3.
Current games are rocking on mobile:
One of the big winners of the mobile wave in Asia is Pearl Abyss with the relatively new MMORPG “Black Desert” (2015). No wonder we have to wait so long for the PS4 and Xbox One version of Black Desert here.
The mobile variant of Black Desert has generated so much revenue in Asia, that they could buy the Icelandic EVE studio CCP right away.
Accordingly, CCP is currently planning new mobile titles for Asia. The head of the Icelandic studio predicts that the mobile hype from South Korea will soon come to the West.
MMORPG Bless Online wants to go mobile
Bless is also on board: The MMORPG Bless Online, which has been heavily criticized on PC in many countries, is also planning a mobile variant.
Here you can see the character creation of Bless Mobile.
Will the trend also sweep over to the West?
Will it come to Europe? The first attempts to bring this mobile hype to Europe and North America have so far been rather mediocre.
The flagship Asian games in the mobile sector are “Lineage 2 Revolution” and the LoL variant “Arena of Valor.” Both titles are now also playable in the West.
However, they have not been able to make significant waves so far. Lineage 2 Revolution even spent money to recruit US star Conan O’Brien as their advertising figure.
The problem: In the West, “mobile gaming” is seen more as a domain for casual players. However, the successful titles from Asia are aimed at core gamers. At the moment, the gaming industry is trying to establish such “core mobile games” in the West. But they are encountering resistance from players who prefer to stick to PC, PS4 or Xbox One.
It remains to be seen whether the mobile trend will really sweep over to Germany and the West. It could awaken the MMORPGs from their slumber.
