GNGWC 2008: Game and Game World Championship starts in Europe

The international game contest, GNGWC, sponsored by KIPA, has been held for 3 years for the purpose of globalization of Korean online games. In this year, 4 Korean games, including ShotOnline (by OnNet), Atlantica (by NDoors), SilkroadOnline (by JoyMax), and Navy Field (by SDEnternet), have been chosen for official games. The online preliminary contests will start in July, the local final contests will be in 6 countries all around the world, and the final match will be in Korea in November.

GNGWC has become a source to find out great online games developed by medium or small sized Korean game companies, and to help them distribute the products to overseas by their own capacities in the short period of time.

Korea was the number one in the online game industries on the basis of world class IT infrastructures and game developments. But other countries such as China getting into the business lately have been improved rapidly, and Korea’s overseas marketing with licensing through local publishers has met the limitation causing its market decrease. At this moment, KIPA’s GNGWC has become the window for Korean game companies to prove their superior products internationally.

KIPA and its official sponsor KT Corporation (CEO: Jungsu NAM) established base servers in 6 different countries considering their online infrastructures in order to support localization and marketing of the games for GNGWC. This year in GNGWC, based on the administration know-how regarding international game contests, contests will be held in 6 countries, which is one more country compared to last year.

In GNGWC 2007, about 120 gamers through online preliminary contests and the local final contests all around the world competed. The official games of last year such as Lunia (by Allm), BombNDash (by Innodis), and Navy Field (by SDEnternet) have been contracted for overseas services through GNGWC 2007. As a result, those companies reached significant marketing achievements, i.e. increasing the number of new users, etc.

GNGWC 2008 will start with online preliminary contests in July, with subsequent local final contests in Europe (Leipzig, Germany), Southeast Asia (Singapore), North America (San Francisco, U.S.A.), Korea (Yongin), South America (Sang Paulo, Brazil), and Japan (Tokyo), and the final contest will be in Korea in November.

Taekmin KWON from the Digital Contents Business Group of KIPA said “Korean online game industries are currently depressed, and we need the entry for global market as soon as possible. And GNGWC will be the suitable marketing means”, and added “We will try to foster the domestic e-sports contests using foreign games for professional gamers, will try to encourage public users with Korean online games through the GNGWC.”

For more information about the GNGWC, please refer to the official KIPA website.

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