China and Korea partner to form a $46M investment fund for game developers

by Justin Olivetti on Aug 27th 2011 7:00PM

Culture, MMO Industry, Legal, Miscellaneous

It may seem like a case of strange bedfellows -- China and South Korea aren't exactly buddy-buddy -- but through the magic of gaming, the two countries are growing closer than ever before. Recently, Chinese company Kunlun announced that it's partnering with the Korean government to whip up a $46 million investment fund for game developers.

Kunlun is a major player in China, claiming a respective 20% of the market in the country with over $187 million in sales last year, enough to take second place. The company owns Koramgame, an MMO publisher that's made inroads with both the Chinese and Korean markets with titles like Three Kingdoms Online and Dynasty Saga. Koramgame already has over two million subscribers worldwide.

Koramgame's Joe Zhou hopes that it'll capture a slice of the American pie, too: "We are catching more and more attention from North American gamers now."

Source: Gamasutra, Gamasutra #2

Tags: china, chinese, dynasty-saga, game-developers, investment-fund, Joe-Zhou, koramgame, korea, korean, kunlun, south-korea, south-korean-government, three-kingdoms-online

Reader Comments (3)

That sounds pretty awesome. It's always nice when those who've had success help out those trying to break into an industry, instead of doing their best to keep out new competition. I wonder if there is anything comparable for NA/EU indie game developers? Even if it's just backing for easier loan approval, that could go a long ways for a developer being able to get the starting funds they'll need.

For $46,000,000 I'm sure they will produce about 75 really horrible games.

Interesting how out of control buget is in the west....when I saw the tag $46million I instantly thought "that's not even half what a western mmo needs these days." and thats a fund for presumably several development studios.

Unyet I was playing great games 15-20 years ago that were made by one or two people in their basement on a $500 budget. So I'm well aware money alone doesn't make a great game.

Perhaps that is something western developers need to look at, if your game costs less, it doesn't have to sell x-million copies just to break even. The line between success and failure is too great in western games these days, too much money on marketing, not enough money on ideas.