BUSAN ― This year’s G-Star saw a boost in international recognition, shown through new online and mobile games as well as increased partnerships with overseas firms as it ended Sunday.
People waited in hour-long lines to experience online games scheduled for future release ― such as NCsoft’s “Guild Wars 2” and “Lineage Eternal,” Neowiz’s “DIZZEL,” NEXON’s “Epic of the Three Kingdoms” and NHN Hangame’s “Winning Eleven Online.” It was the first time they were unveiled to the global industry.
G-Star 2011 was also the first stage showcase for Netmarble’s “RIFT,” an online game that is already a hit in North America, and “Arch Lord 2,” a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Webzen.
“G-Star has the most and best content in terms of online games,” said Irene Cui, Korean branch chief executive of ChangYou.com, a game developer and publisher in China.
As to support the claim, Blizzard Entertainment featured the Korean language version of its action role-playing game “Diablo 3,” which is expected to get a Korean release early next year.
Jay Wilson, game director for Diablo 3, said the company was in the “very final stages of development” and that the game would be released simultaneously in most regions, including Korea.
“We’re almost done, I promise and it’s not going to be any longer in wait,” he told a pool of reporters, adding that the game content will not disappoint game players of the upgraded Diablo.
Wilson also said that the firm was working to service a console game version of newest Diablo, claiming that an internal group had been set up at Blizzard.
“We have a group internally doing a console version on Diablo 3. The group includes a lead designer and a lead programmer,” he said. “We’ll be able to put more effort into it when (the development of) Diablo 3 finishes.”
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People try Neowiz’s new online game “DIZZEL” at its booth at G-Star 2011 in Busan on Sunday. (G-Star 2011 Secretariat) |
The business-to-business halls were also filled with possible buyers and traders who were ready to make more business during the four-day game trade show.
Cui of ChangYou.com, a company that has been participating in G-Star for the third time, said this year marked its biggest participation in terms of booth size.
“We not only hold private meetings but we also get to see representatives of firms from Europe and Southeast Asia, which gives us a chance to promote our company,” she said, while mentioning that it holds up to 40 meetings a day in four of its meeting rooms.
Jason Lim, account manager at Cherry Credits, a micropayment provide for digital content and game channeling, also said G-Star is a “chance to meet with new games coming up in Korea.”
“G-Star is the leading one for MMORPG games,” he said.
Holding about 10 meetings per day, it has already partnered several games with local online game companies like NHN Hangame, Webzen, Neowiz and Netmarble.
In the meantime, Korea’s G-Star and Tokyo Game Show ― one of the world’s top three game trade shows ― signed an agreement Friday to cooperate on the long-term development by joint promotion and exchanges.
G-Star organizer Korea Creative Content Agency also agreed to join Germany’s gamescom, which is the largest trade show in the game sector, as a partnering country last week. The event indicated that the joint booth of Korea at gamescom will be increased by 25 percent.
G-Star, the country’s largest international game trade show that was taken part by 384 firms from 28 nations, presented a wide array of arcade, board and console games as well as online and mobile games at BEXCO from Nov. 10-13. The number of visitors exceeded 300,000, a jump from 280,000 last year.
By Cho Ji-hyun (
sharon@heraldcorp.com)
