Last War, from 179th to 3rd in Sales Ranking
Surpasses Beoseotkeo Growing in User Numbers
Hyper-Casual Games Gain Popularity with Simple Controls ↑
Most Top Games Are Chinese-Made
Recently, the hyper-casual genre has been gaining prominence in the domestic gaming market. As hyper-casual games climb to the top of the revenue rankings, the influence of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), which have traditionally dominated the market, is relatively diminishing.
According to application analytics firm Mobile Index on the 12th, in last month's app market revenue rankings, the leading hyper-casual game 'Last War: Survival' ranked 3rd, following 'Beoseotkeo Kiugi' and 'Lineage M'. Hyper-casual games are mobile games that allow immediate gameplay with simple controls such as stacking, rotating, and dropping.
Last War achieved 3rd place in the Google Play Store and 2nd place in the Apple App Store revenue rankings. This surpasses titles from major domestic game companies such as Kakao Games' 'Odin: Valhalla Rising' and NCSoft's 'Lineage W'.
Until October last year, Last War was ranked 179th in the monthly revenue rankings. However, it steadily rose to 74th in November and 18th in December of the same year. In January this year, it entered the top 10 for the first time by ranking 5th, and has since continued to outperform major domestic game revenues. It even surpassed the user count of 'Beoseotkeo Kiugi', which made a significant impact on the market by ranking 1st in revenue. Last month, Last War ranked 18th in user count, while Beoseotkeo Kiugi ranked 20th.
Other hyper-casual games such as 'TangTang Teukgongdae' and 'Ddaengddaeng Mabeopsa' also recorded relatively high rankings. TangTang Teukgongdae ranked 29th in both revenue and user count last month. Ddaengddaeng Mabeopsa, a relatively new release from November last year, ranked 29th and 109th respectively.
The strength of hyper-casual games in the domestic mobile game market is due to their relatively simple controls and short playtime. Players can enjoy these games without investing significant effort or time.
Advertising strategies have also been effective. In the case of Last War, after advertising through social networking services (SNS) like Instagram, it attracted attention by featuring famous celebrities such as Shin Dong-yup. TangTang Teukgongdae and Ddaengddaeng Mabeopsa have also engaged in aggressive marketing by exposing numerous ads on SNS.
On the other hand, the dominance of MMORPGs, which are the mainstream in the domestic market, is declining. An industry insider said, "We believe that users tired of MMORPGs have moved to the hyper-casual genre, which is easier to enjoy."
As hyper-casual games gain attention, there is also analysis that the status of Chinese game companies has been further solidified. Last War was developed by the Chinese game company FirstFun, TangTang Teukgongdae was produced by Habby, a game company established by Chinese app developers in Singapore, and Ddaengddaeng Mabeopsa was also developed by the Chinese game company Open New Games.
A game industry official said, "Chinese game companies are showing superiority in various genres and are also strong in the hyper-casual field. Since domestic users have a high proportion of cash payments, the aggressive marketing by Chinese game companies in the domestic market has also yielded results."
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