Smilegate

Smilegate is a South Korean video game company headquartered in Pangyo. It develops, publishes, and services online games on mobile and PC platforms. Established in South Korea in 2002,^[2] it is the creator of Crossfire, an FPS game with over six million concurrent players across the globe,^[3] and many more titles. Smilegate is a corporate group owned by Smilegate Holdings. As of 2022, it was the third largest game company in Korea, according to The Korea Economic Daily.^[4]

Smilegate Group
스마일게이트

Industry	Video games
Founded	June 2002 in Seoul, South Korea
Founder	Kwon Hyuk-Bin
Headquarters	Pangyo, Seongnam , South Korea
Products	Crossfire Lost Ark Epic Seven TalesRunner
Revenue	1.577 trillion KRW (2022)
Operating income	643 billion KRW (2022)
Net income	63.3 billion KRW (2022)
Owner	Kwon Hyuk-Bin (100%)[1]
Number of employees	~3,300 (2023)
Parent	Smilegate Holdings
Subsidiaries	Smilegate Entertainment Smilegate RPG Smilegate Megaport Smilegate Stove Smilegate West Smilegate Barcelona SmilegateRealies Smilegate AI Smilegate Investment Smilegate Asset Management Orange Planet Smilegate Foundation
Website	www.smilegate.com/en

History

Smilegate's yearly revenue in 2021 was 1.43 trillion KRW ($1.08 billion) with 593 billion won operating profit.^[4] It was estimated to be worth $7.55 billion in 2022.^[4] In 2018 it had about 2,200 employees.^[5] Smilegate subsidiary Stove is dedicated to indie game developers.^[6][7][8]

Crossfire

Crossfire is an FPS that has reached more than 8 million concurrent users around the world. Crossfire is being serviced in 80 countries worldwide including China, Brazil, Vietnam, Northern America, and Europe.

Every year, Smilegate organizes an international Crossfire tournament with a prize pool of approximately 1 billion KRW titled CFS (CrossFire Stars). CFS has the largest scale among all tournaments held by video game companies in South Korea.

Smilegate made a tremendous amount of revenue from Crossfire ever since its release. With the success of Crossfire, Smilegate was nominated as one of <THE TOP 30 DEVELOPERS>^[9] by Game Developer.

According to a list^[10] made in 2014 by SuperData Research, Crossfire made the most amount of revenue among all F2P games worldwide.

Crossfire was the world’s most played game until League of Legends took the first place in 2017.

Lost Ark

Lost Ark is a PC MMORPG developed by Smilegate RPG. Lost Ark was first released in South Korea in 2018 costing approximately 100 million KRW during the 7 years of development. It became increasingly popular in 2021 and became one of the top trending games in South Korea.

In February 2022, the game was launched in Northern America and Europe via Steam. Lost Ark reached more than 1.32 million concurrent users on Steam, becoming the most played game on the platform. The record of 1.32 million concurrent users is the second place in the entire history of Steam, the first place being 3.25 million concurrent users of PUBG: Battlegrounds. Considering that Lost Ark was only released in North America and Europe, some argue that Lost Ark was more impactful than PUBG: Battlegrounds, which was released in China as well.

Epic Seven

Epic Seven is a mobile turn-based RPG game developed by subsidiary Super Creative and released in 2018.^[11][12][13] It became Smilegate's first successful title in the West, with the United States at one point accounting more than half of its revenue.^[12] In June 2023, it released in China through Chinese publisher Zlong Games.^[14] By August 2023 it had reached $650 million in global sales.^[13] Epic Seven utilizes an in-house game engine designed to support older devices and improve loading times.^[15][16]

Games

These are the games developed or published by Smilegate. Publisher and release dates are for South Korea unless otherwise noted.

Year	Game	Developer(s)	Publisher(s)	Genre	Platform
2005	TalesRunner	Rhaon Entertainment	Smilegate Megaport	Action	Microsoft Windows
2007	Crossfire	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Tencent (China), Lytogame (Indonesia)	FPS
2010	ProBaseball Manager Online	Sega	Smilegate Megaport	Sports	Mobile
2011	Freestyle2: Street Basketball	JoyCity	JoyCity (US), Smilegate Megaport (South Korea)	Sports	Microsoft Windowos
2012	MVP baseball online		Smilegate Entertainment (South Korea)	Sports	Microsoft Windows
2013	Devil Maker: Tokyo	Ncrew Entertainment	Smilegate Megaport	RPG	Mobile
	Eastern Blade		Smilegate Megaport
2014	Qurare: Magic Library	Palmple, iO Studio		RPG	Mobile, PlayStation 4 (2016)
2015	Dragon Fate	Lion Games Studios	Smilegate Entertainment	RPG	Mobile
	Bunnypang	Smilegate	Smilegate Megaport	Action	Mobile
	AZERA	Timber Games	Smilegate Entertainment	MMORPG	Microsoft Windows
	Crossfire: Mobile	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Entertainment	FPS	Mobile
2017	SoulWorker	Lion Games Studios	Smilegate Entertainment	MMORPG	Microsoft Windows
	Super Tank Rumble	Lumidia Games	Smilegate Entertainment	Action	Mobile
	TAHN	Tencent Games	Smilegate Entertainment	FPS
	ChaosMasters	Neoact	Smilegate Entertainment	RPG
	WarReign	Red Sahara Studio	Smilegate Entertainment	RTS
2018	Arcane Straight	Gameplete	Smilegate Megaport	Card Battle RPG
	Lost Ark	Smilegate RPG, Tripod Studio	Smilegate RPG	MMORPG	Microsoft Windows
	Epic Seven	Super Creative	Smilegate Entertainment	RPG	Mobile
2019	ROGAN: The Thief in the Castle	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Entertainment	Stealth Action Adventure	Microsoft Windows
	Focus on You	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Entertainment	Adventure	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4
	Final Assault	Phaser Lock Interactive	Smilegate Entertainment	RTS	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4
2020	Crossfire: Zero	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Entertainment	FPS	Microsoft Windows
	Crossfire: Warzone	JoyCity	Smilegate Entertainment	RTS	Mobile
2021	Crossfire HD	Smilegate Entertainment	Tencent (China)	FPS	Microsoft Windows
2022	CrossfireX	Smilegate Entertainment, Remedy Entertainment	Smilegate	FPS	Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
	Crossfire: Legion	Blackbird Interactive	Prime Matter	Real-time strategy	Microsoft Windows
2023	OUTERPLANE	VA Games	Smilegate Megaport	RPG	Mobile
	Crossfire: Sierra Squad	Smilegate Entertainment	Smilegate Entertainment	FPS	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 (PlayStation VR2)
TBA	SkySaga: Infinite Isles	Radiant Worlds	Smilegate Entertainment	Sandbox MMORPG	Microsoft Windows

References

1. Chung, Grace. "Online Hit Game CrossFire Mints South Korea's Richest Self-Made Billionaire". Forbes.
2. Yoon Sung-won. "Smilegate vows to revitalize online game sector". Korea times. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
3. Lee Ji-yoon. "[Herald Interview] The woman behind success of 'Crossfire'". Korea herald. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
4. Cha, Jun-Ho; Cho, Jin-Hyoung (Nov 14, 2022). "Corporate restructure inevitable at Smilegate as founder faces divorce". The Korea Economic Daily.
5. Baek, Byung-yeul (6 September 2018). "Game firm workers setting up labor unions". The Korea Times.
6. Sung-won, Yoon (2015-06-04). "Smilegate offers mobile game platform service". The Korea Times. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
7. "Smilegate to support small companies with $10 million of funding". Korea JoongAng Daily. 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
8. Jeong-yeo, Lim (2019-08-21). "Smilegate Stove brings VR games to Korean Army". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
9. UBM TechWeb (2012). GDM JuneJuly 2012.
10. Tassi, Paul. "CrossFire: Tencent's Top Earning Free-to-Play Game You've Never Heard Of". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
11. Lee, Ju-Hyun (Apr 22, 2024). "Korea's Smilegate unveils new RPG Chaos Zero Nightmare". The Korea Economic Daily.
12. Sinclair, Brendan (27 September 2022). "Smilegate at 20: Growing beyond Crossfire, reaching beyond games". GamesIndustry.biz.
13. 이승희 (24 August 2023). "에픽세븐 글로벌 매출 6억 5천만 달러 돌파, 중국 모바일RPG 매출 TOP10 랭크". betanews.net (in Korean).
14. 원동현 (2023-11-02). "스마일게이트 '에픽세븐', 중국 출시로 제2의 전성기". gamevu.
15. Byung-wook, Kim (23 March 2021). "Why develop in-house game engines?". The Korea Herald.
16. 관리자, 스마일게이트 (October 11, 2018). "Everything about the YUNA Engine, the Heart of Epic Seven!". smilegate.

External links

• Official website