South Korea’s game developer Netmarble Corp. is expediting new mobile rollouts with an aim to enhance competitiveness of its core game business this year.

According to industry sources on Sunday, Netmarble will release up to five new games by June to turn its focus back to game business after engrossment over the acquisition of Woongjin Coway, the country’s top home appliance rental service company last year.

The first in the pipeline is its new mobile game ‘A3: Still Alive’ slated for launch on March 12. It spent huge amounts of money and manpower of more than 120 engineers over the past three years to develop the game. An industry official said the gaming giant hopes to replicate the success of Lineage 2 Revolution that raked in 206 billion won ($170.8 million) in just a month since its launch in late 2016. The multiplayer role-playing game became the first Korean game that ranked top in Japan by sales and made top 20 in North America, giving the company a title of a global game publisher.

After the global launch of its new mobile role-playing game ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross’ last Tuesday, it plans a massive new releases including Koongya Draw Party, Stone Age M and Blade & Soul Revolution to the global market after April. The game tycoon makes more than 70 percent sales from overseas, with North America taking up 30 percent, followed by Korea with 28 percent, Japan 15 percent, Europe 11 percent and Southeast Asia 9 percent.

The company chairman Bang Joon-hyuk reportedly urged its employees to work hard to achieve “strong Netmarble” by focusing on reinforcing game business, as he believes they now have attained the goal of becoming “healthy Netmarble” by stabilizing the 52-hour maximum workweek system, according to sources.

By Lim Young-shin and Choi Mira

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