Lineage II: Coming this 2007!
AMDG, the company that is currently distributing Warcraft, Counterstrike, Starcraft, Diablo, and Guild Wars just bagged one of the most awarded and successful games in Korea: Lineage II.
MANILA, Philippines--After almost a year of courtship, South Korean game development giant NCsoft and Philippine publisher Asian Media Development Group have closed a $5.5-M deal to distribute Lineage II not just in the Philippines, but across Southeast Asia. - www.hackenslash.net
Talk about big bucks! $5.5M is almost 275M PHP! Personally, I believe AMDG has a good game on their hands but there are alot of threats that they should tackle if they really want to get their investment back. Namely:
Proliferation of Private Servers: Lineage II has an abundance of private servers wherein players can play for free. The current business model of LII in Korea is still pay-to-play, so it's safe to assume that it will be the same here.
High Computer Specs: LII has one of the highest required computer specs to play. If I'm not mistaken, it's a few notches above RF when it comes to video card and processor needs.
Competitors: Alot of quality games will be coming in this year; including Ragnarok 2, Perfect World, Silkroad, and Granado Espada.
That's from the business point of view. However for the gaming community as a whole, this is a very good thing. Each time a new game comes out, the industry grows because it attracts more people and it converts more non-gamers. For example, alot of people were saying that Pangya, being a golf game, wouldn't make it big here. But Pangya was successful in doing something that even Ragnarok ocouldn't do - get alot of young professionals and older people to start online gaming. Like what I said in the previous RF post, 2007 will be a very big year for the online gaming industry!
To end this post, let me share with everyone a LII video I found on YOUTUBE:
3 comments:
Local hardware prices are going down all the time. AMDG is thinking like a VC, anticipating the availability of necessary hardware.
Furthermore, the Philippine market is becoming more and more connected to global tastes. While Ragnarok is a big local brand, Lineage is a gargantuan global brand.
Hi Mike!
Appreciate the comment. Anyway, I was more concerned with the price tag because it would be very hard to hit a decent ROI. Games with high specs might make it big in major key cities but it will be hard to expand into provinces.
With regards to brand - I'll do a study on recorded concurrent users of Lineage and Ragnarok on a global scale. If you check international gaming sites like mmosite.com or mmorpg.com, you'll be surprised to find out that in terms of popularity and game play, RO is at par and sometimes even better than lineage.
Ciao! ^^
I'll do a study on recorded concurrent users of Lineage and Ragnarok on a global scale.
I look forward to the results of your study, Carlo. :)
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