Top 5 Most Difficult Jobs to Hire - June 25
Hiring difficulty is affecting some of the biggest game companies in Korea and worldwide, we look at the most difficult-to-hire positions for gaming employers at the moment.
Meeting of Minds: Hiroharu’s Battle Royale Reborn at Krafton Part 1/2
Hinoharu Takami’s Battle Royale artificially remade itself onto a virtual environment to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds with the help of Brendan, the Irish
Krafton’s Birth and Battle Royale
An Irish Creative Designer’s New Discovery: Japanese Dystopia
Hinoharu Takami (”Koushun Takami”) worked on his first and last dystopian novel ‘Battle Royale’ after leaving a news company ‘Shikoku Shihnbun’ in 1996. In the book, a fictional authoritarian government kidnaps high school students, drops them in a remote location, and forces them to fight each other to the death. The novel was rejected in the final round of a literary competition ‘Japan Grand Prix Horror Novel’ sponsored by a major publisher due to the critical controversy it provoked among its jury members.
The idea of a last man standing death match was quickly adapted into a film of the same name. Then it began to reach beyond the Japanese geographical boundaries far out to a creative designer based out of Ireland as he tries his new inspiration by colouring the idea of battle royale into a mod for ARMA 2 & 3. (You can click to see the decade old reddit link). The replies show signs of early market traction among the community users.
ARMA 2 Description: In 2009 the fictional post-soviet country of Chernarus is ravaged by civil war. For two crippling years, conflict has raged... Players explore this volatile world with Force Recon Razor Team, part of a US Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit. The 27th MEU are deployed to Northern Chernarus on a peacekeeping mission with a mandate to prevent further civilian casualties and promote political stability.
DayZ Battle Royale is an extreme survival mod that plunges players into a bloody game mode where only the crazy, the brave and the foolish come to be champions. Based on the book/movie 'Battle Royale', this mod provides a unique gameplay experience. The rules are simple. Everybody spawns inside a barn, with backpacks containing food, drink and some guns, authentic to the original story. You are locked in place, and after a countdown, it's every man for themselves!
Global Fans of Battle Royale
The Irish designer was not the first one to notice the film of its inspirational depth indeed. Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino also praised Battle Royale as his favourite film of the previous two decades.
Separately but simultaneously on the other side of the globe, there were a group of struggling game developers with a domestic investor bankrolling in Seoul. They set-up a shop called ‘Bluehole Studio’ or ‘Bluehole’ in 2007 with six co-founders, many joined after leaving the NCSoft with extensive developmental experience for Lineage MMORPG franchises. The first ambitious global MMORPG title with substantial investment ‘TERA’ largely struggled switching on and off the profit curve into mixed signals of green and red up until 2016. Bluehole’s financial losses were mounting to the tune of approx. 20 million US dollars in 2015. Then, Bluehole struck a luck whilst acquiring local game development studios such as ‘Zinno Games’. A developer from the newly acquired studio suggested a new game idea and the project was approved with one condition: bring an Irish designer to Bluehole to recreate battle royale.
In March 2016, Bluehole begins ‘Project Bro’ to develop ‘PlayerUnknown: Battlegrounds’ with the designer flew in from Ireland as the new Creative Director.
By September 2017, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds sells over 10 million copies.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)’s First Trailer
Circumventing Geo-political Land Mines, Krafton-style
China Episode
In November 2017, the guaranteed success of the sole IP PlayerUnknown’s Battle Royale lures Tencent into signing a publishing contract into the Chinese market for Krafton. However, the Chinese regulators implicitly denied the market license for Tencent to charge fees to Chinese users until May 2019 amid a brewing geo-political tension with Korea. Tencent then rebrands the original title to somewhat ironical ‘Game for Peace’ whilst shooting other players for survival.
But the rebranding exercise curiously worked in the end and Tencent continues to exclusively sell to the Chinese market under the new banner whilst sending a form of royalties (”officially for the technological services rendered”) to Krafton in Seoul to circumvent the commercial license requirement. Problem solved for now.
“Game for Peace”.. nevermind the blood
India Episode feat. China
‘PlayerUnknown: Battlegrounds’ continued printing money for both Bluehole and Tencent until September 2020. In September 2020, now the Indian regulators cite the new geo-political tension with China as the ground to halt the commercial games published by Tencent by requesting Google & Apple app stores to delete the game from the Indian market where it was ranked one of the most played games for its domestic users. Tencent subsequently withdraws from the Indian market altogether and hands over the exclusive distribution license to Krafton without a contractual cancellation fee. Krafton then assumes the Indian market channel rights and promise to invest 100 million US dollars into the market. But the Indian government remains adamant and Tencent withdraws from the market on the 30th of September 2020, handing over the distribution rights to Krafton.
In July 2021, Krafton with the promise of local investment re-floats the game. Then suspended again in July 2022 and resumes the service once again on May 2023, surpassing the previous sales record to the tune of 74 million dollars. Due to the overreaching influence of the battle royale genre, local regulators seem to demand their own custom versions of the game like when Hiroharu’s novel was rejected in a literary competition due to the critical controversy it provoked among the reviewers. All being true to its original story.
‘PlayerUnknown: Battlegrounds’ Keeps Printing Money
So far, it seems to be a feel-good story. The developer from the acquired company who first suggested the battle royale genre became the top dog of his former employer and the investor who suggested importing Irish from the other side of the globe has now multiplied his early investments. We will next bring our audience up-to-date with its current activities from a talent intelligence and competitor intelligence angle.
Stay tuned for our next newsletter as we unveil more competitive intelligence for the Korean gaming sector.
Obliq Talent Intelligence - Korean Gaming Special Edition
Engineer Truth with Alternative Data
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