XLGAMES has received a vote of confidence in the form of some welcome investment from fellow Korean developer (and publisher) WeMade Entertainment. MMO Culture is reporting that WeMade recently sold off over $178M in Kakao shares and then turned around to snap up an unknown quantity of shares in the ArcheAge developer.
This is good news for XLGAMES, which ended 2016 on a down note after announcing that its Civilization Online was closing down following a year of Korean open beta. Now that the studio has an infusion of investment, perhaps we will see a new project emerge from Jake Song’s imagination factory.
Source: MMO Culture
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Wait, so they took shares out of Kakao with Black Desert which is becoming more popular.
Then they put said money into XLGames who is notorious for debacles even more so and more consistent than Kakao?
Unless they have some new game in development which is ready to contend with BDO, no amount of money is going to change how people view XLGames.
Pretty sure they are able to look at the cash shop sales and the like and make determinations from that.
Players see investment coming in and think that means a game is popular, but companies look at revenue, debt and assets which may/may not directly be related to gaming or a game and invest on that.
This may mean that they think XLGames is a good bet but for different reasons altogether, not that “ArcheAge is better than Black Desert”.
WeMade is also the developer behind Riders of Icarus (Icarus Online).
I don’t know about the deal, but I like their name.
Now they can start work on their new project right away. It will be a classic Korean mmo with a cool Korean style acronym called “GUMO” or Give Us Money Online. They are partnering with Trino Worlds in the west. Trino will assure us that this new game is “Pay to Progress” not “Pay To Win.”
There will be a patron subscription which gives you 100% more of every obtainable thing and buffs your run and mount speed. Inventory and bank slots have to be purchased seperately. Every outfit in the game looks like garbage, but there are pretty ones in the store for $30, or you can try your luck at a $15 lockbox that has 0,001% drop chance for anything that’s remotely desirable.
… do I understand the modern payment model?
Nope. The really good stuff is in the lock boxes. You can get some okayish looking crap for 30 bucks on the cash shop though.
LOL