[Yonhap Photo]
Chinese investors are turning back from South Korea's gaming industry which used to be the target of aggressive mergers and acquisitions by takeover artists from Asia's largest economy, a state survey showed Friday.
From 2010 to 2014, Chinese internet firms and other investors such as mobile messenger operator WeChat were involved in aggressive investments in South Korean game developers on expectations that they would dominate global online and mobile gaming markets.
But Chinese investments have drastically slowed in the past two years and no single case this year, according to the state-run Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA).
"The fall of the South Korean gaming industry was predictable," said Pliskin, a gamer developer who spoke on condition of using an alias. "The creativity had been lost from the industry for a long time. No gamer wants to play the same old boring games."
"South Korean game companies sought to raise sales by developing games similar to already successful games. This resulted in all the games being similar to each other, confusing gamers and robbing the fun from them."
Pliskin's opinion was echoed by KOCCA's critical report that many South Korean mobile game creators have copied each other's key elements, turning away consumers. The report said: "Because nobody was sure that the game was going to succeed in sales, investment got frozen."
Many experts foresee that South Korea's gaming industry is unlikely to rebuild its former glory. An analyst from KCube Ventures, a venture capital firm, said : "Now that the Chinese game developers are as skilful as the South Korean counterparts, there's no reason for Chinese firms to invest here. Their investments will eventually dry out."
"I can say the gaming industry is already dead," said Pliskin. "Even locally invested online/ mobile games have failed miserably in recent years. There will be no one left to make investments."
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@gmail.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
