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By Yoon Sung-won
CJ E&M and other portal companies are spinning off their game operations. They hope the move will allow them to grow independently and cope better with the rapidly expanding gaming market worldwide.
According to game industry researchers AppLift and NewZoo, the growth of the market for global mobile games will grow to $35.4 billion by 2017 from $17.5 billion last year.
CJ Group's media and entertainment affiliate, CJ E&M, branched off its game distribution platform business arm as a new independent corporation "CJ Netmarble," Friday.
The new game publisher will be led by CEO Kwon Young-sig, who has worked as president of CJ Games, a game developing affiliate, since January.
CJ Netmarble and CJ Games are expected to be integrated into an even larger game business in October to create synergy between game development and distribution. The name of the integrated corporation has not yet been decided.
Thus far, Netmarble has been one of the game publishing companies that have successfully adjusted to the rapid changes in the gaming market. In recent years, the mainstream platform for gaming has changed from online to mobile.
Expectations are high that CJ Netmarble will be aggressive driver on the overseas market, banking on the successes in the local mobile game market.
"We are already receiving positive results in the Chinese market where we are cooperating with Tencent. On the back of its mobile messenger platform QQ, one of the most used services in China, we expect an even better performance later this year," said a spokesman at CJ Netmarble.
"We are also seeing positive signs in other markets overseas as well. The popularity of our mobile game title ‘Everybody's Marble' in Thailand is one example. We plan to enter markets in the United States, Europe and other parts of Asia once we can guarantee profitability," he added.
Earlier in March, CJ Games attracted $5 billion investment from the Chinese IT giant Tencent.
"We will go global under the strong cooperation with Tencent," said a company executive at that time.
Daum Games
Daum Communications, the nation's second-largest web portal, also spun off its game business, naming it "Daum Games," Friday.
It is headquartered in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, where there is a cluster of local IT businesses.
"We will do our utmost to get major game titles and plan on rolling out our Daum web platform to seek more business opportunities," said Hong Sung-ju, the newly-appointed CEO of Daum Games. "Our ultimate goal is to build a game company that can successfully adapt to the rapidly changing game market."
Daum Games is scheduled to release the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game "Black Desert" in the latter half this year. It is one of the most-anticipated online game titles developed by local firm "Pearl Abyss."
In May, Daum Communications decided to separate its game business to an independent corporation to strengthen its operations in the highly-competitive game industry.
"As of now, we have no plan to go into mobile game sector. Instead, we will concentrate on enhancing our capability and lineup in online games," a Daum Game spokeswoman said.
