SK Telecom, LG Electronics team up with game firms


Firms are turning their eyes to the online game industry for better marketing not only in Korea but also in the overseas markets.

SK Telecom, the country’s top mobile carrier, said Monday it would join hands with NHN, operator of well-known online game portal Hangame, to target the Japanese mobile application market.

The strategic partnership states that Hangame will provide the main mobile game applications to SKT and the wireless service operator will sell the contents to Japanese consumers through its app store called T-Store. A separate version of T-Store ― tentatively named J-Store ― will be customized for Japan and it is expected to be released in October.

An SKT official said the company projects to settle in the Japanese market at an early date especially because Hangame already has an overseas office in Japan and the game firm is quite well-known there.

Hangame, which expanded its operations in Japan earlier in 2000, has grown into an online game portal that has a subscription base of 38 million.

“Since many of the game firms have already gone global, many of the electronics companies, also the telecom firms, are trying to work together with those that already have experience in going forward with global projects nowadays,” said Moon Sun-mi, senior manager of business-to-business planning at Hangame. “Although results are yet to be seen because the launch of mobile games is only in the beginning stage, it’s in the making.”

She added that many firms are contacting not only Hangame but its rivals such as Nexon and CJ Entertainment and Media for global marketing.

Companies that run with a focus on the local market, as in the case of SKT, have experienced a number of failures involving global projects in the past for their lack of experience and business planning.

LG Electronics, on the other hand, has announced it will use game marketing to take up a bigger stake in the global 3-D television market.

The event, dubbed “Cinema 3-D Game Festival,” which was launched at a game exhibition called GamesCom from Aug. 17-21 in Germany for the first time, enabled people wearing 3-D glasses to enjoy popular games ― such as those on Microsoft’s Kinect ― in 3-D, according to LG officials.

The event was previously launched in Seoul earlier this year and it is expected to be held in 20 other nations, including Canada, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, by the end of this year, they said.

“We’re planning to make known through game marketing that our technology, which allows people to see all 3-D displays with a pair of 3-D glasses, is a matchless one,” said Kwon Hee-won, executive vice president of LG’s home entertainment unit.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)