Top online games are minimizing for mobiles

Popular online games have a new locale ― the telephone. Lineage 2, one of the most popular online games in the Korean market, can now be played over cellular phones. The mobile version, Lineage 2 Genesis, was released yesterday by its developer, NC Soft. It is available through mobile service provider SK Telecom and will be available for KTF and LG Telecom subscribers later this year. The game differs from the original PC version, which is a massive, multi-player online role-playing game in which thousands of players compete simultaneously in a vast cyber world. The biggest change is that the mobile version is altered to fit the platform, and is an action, single-player, role-playing game. Also, while Lineage 2 features five different races from which to choose a character, Lineage 2 Genesis offers only Elven fighters. “The names of locations and characters are the same as Lineage 2 and the image is high quality, but the mobile game is basically a whole different game with two-dimensional images; the original is three dimensional,” said NC Soft’s public relations director Kim Joo-young. The No. 3 online game in the local market, Mu, also began wireless phone services yesterday. Developed and published by Webzen, Mu’s mobile game title is “Mu Jewel of Fairy,” and it has been altered to a role-playing format. “Mobile games and online games are two entirely different platforms, so it is impossible to reconstruct a PC game in its entirety,” said game analyst Kim Shin-ae. “Games differ according to platform: for instance, Play Station games for console are different from Play Station games for Game Boy.” Developers say that turning online games into mobile ones is part of a long-term plan that will have few immediate effects on the companies’ bottom lines. “We don’t expect high sales from the mobile games ― only about 1 percent of those of the PC versions ― but we created the game to be prepared for the future, when mobile-based games will become more advanced than they are currently,” NC Soft’s Mr. Kim said. by Wohn Dong-hee