Emboldened by the blockbuster debut of NCSoft’s new mobile MMORPG title Lineage 2M, Korean game publishers are out to win back the market leadership from Chinese rivals, with new releases planned back to back.

Nexon Co. on Thursday released a massive update for its mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) V4 and beta V4 for PC, which allows users to play the game both on mobile phone and computer. The V4 MMORPG, launched early last month, has ranked on the top 5 positions at both Apple’s App Store and Google Play by revenue as of Friday.

Nexon also plans to publish a mobile version of its mega-hit game Dungeon & Fighter in the first quarter next year on top of others including The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon. Netmarble, another leader of the Korean game industry, will soon launch new games including “Magic: ManaStike” and branch off of its blockbuster title Seven Knights.

Lineage 2M, a new mobile MMORPG by NCSoft has topped on both mobile app stores’ game charts in just a few days after its release on Nov. 27. It is followed by its first-generation sibling Lineage 2M which had been a long-standing leader.

Market experts anticipate the Korean game publishers to expedite new rollouts in the following months to ride on the winning momentum and redeem customers they had lost to Chinese rivals, who had dominated over 40 percent of Korea’s top 100 game rankings earlier this year.

Kakao Games, an affiliate of the country’s largest message app Kakao, recently released Moonlight Sculptor. Line Games of internet giant Naver also has turned out a new mobile game EXOS Heroes. Both new titles so far have been well received by the market.

By Lee Yong-ik and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]