While the likes of Candy Crush, Temple Run and Subway Surfers continue to rule the Indian mobile gaming market, but for the more serious players it has been games such as Battlegrounds Mobile India which kept the ball rolling. KRAFTON, the parent company of Battlegrounds Mobile India revived the game post the ban on the game was revoked by the Indian government. In the last one-two years, a plethora of games including Garena Free Fire and Activision’s Call of Duty have launched in India.
According to the KRAFTON Annual Report 2022, the company recorded a net profit of 500.15 billion South Korean Won. Battlegrounds Mobile India was banned in 2021 and 2022 due to concerns regarding data breaches by the Indian government. The battle royale returned in May of 2023 on a four-month trial period. In a conversation with BrandWagon Online, Sean Hyunil Sohn, CEO, KRAFTON India, spoke about BGMI, the company’s marketing initiatives during the festive period, besides its future plans. (Edited Excerpts)
As a market how important is India? To what extent the ban in India had adversely impacted your business as data shows a slight drop in net profit?
India is one of the top markets for KRAFTON globally while also being one of the major revenue sources. While being banned, one will not be able to generate revenue. The ban was one of the reasons. Furthermore, after going public, the company took on more development projects. Generally, it takes time for development projects to create revenue so there is a gap between when the company started a project and when revenue is recognised.
What is your strategy for this year’s festive season?
We are planning to rope in approximately two to three brand ambassadors into the game. We have previously collaborated with actor Ranveer Singh and cricketer Hardik Pandya. Video content has been planned around the festivities in India in collaboration with the company’s brand ambassadors. BGMI has become a platform for brands to share their brand image and brand value through the game. There are quite a few collaborations in the pipeline. Some of them have been confirmed while some are yet to be finalised. We want to try and bring BGMI into the mainstream.
How is KRAFTON trying to better its e-sports division?
We will try to come up with a better ecosystem for e-sports for BGMI. It has been five months now since the game has returned. We’ll have a full year in 2024 and we will announce something which might be more constructive as a publisher but also to esports teams and players.
KRAFTON also introduced its first incubator in India. Have you found enough games?
We as a gaming company want to work with as many developers in India as possible. Given the size of the population, given the size of the market and given the size of the demand for gaming content, I think the gaming game development ecosystem is still yet to mature. We can add value as a global game gaming company, by bridging gaps between Indian developers and global sort of talents. We have 10-11 studios in Korea and also in other parts of the world like the US and Europe. We will try our best to give mentorship experience to the incubatees in the program. I believe it is very different from other typical incubators, which many support financially and maybe from different areas, but I think that as game developers, it’s very differentiating support.
Do you plan to announce a few more projects in the country?
It has been only six or seven years since the launch of 4G and other technologies. I think there are a lot of gaps. There are certain roles that publisher can play to introduce the right game in the right manner so that more gamers to find the good game or enjoy it with their friends. BGMI was the first try, then there was New State: Mobile, Road to Valor and Defense Derby. I think being slightly different from other global gaming companies, we will continue to launch new games in different genres. We expect to have at least one or two games to launch by December or early next year. We are trying to find the additional trigger by introducing more games and using different marketing, like trying to expand into different genres.