Nexon’s 'Kart' and 'Baram-ui Nara' Mobile Games Race Ahead Amid Retro Craze

KartRider Rush+ Reaches 1.06 Million Daily Users in Japan, Ranking 1st
Baram-ui Nara: Yeon Ranks 2nd in Daily Revenue in Japan with High User Share in Their 20s

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Nexon's 'KartRider (Kart)' and the mobile versions of 'The Kingdom of the Winds' are gaining popularity riding the retro wave.

Mobile big data platform company IGAWorks announced on the 3rd the analysis results of the 'Mobile Game Market Status in the First Half of 2020' through its data analysis solution Mobile Index.

The most popular mobile game application is Nexon's 'Kart Rush Plus,' which recorded a daily active user (DAU) count of 1,059,795 as of July 23, ranking first. Since the release of Kart Rush Plus, Nexon has also achieved a remarkable increase of 1.5 percentage points in domestic revenue share. Kart Rush Plus is a mobile game based on the PC game Kart intellectual property (IP), which was released in 2004 and has been loved for 16 years.

Following Kart Rush Plus were Neowiz's 'Pimang New Matgo' (460,000 users), Supercell's 'Brawl Stars' (450,000 users), Nexon's 'The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon' (370,000 users), and Krafton's 'Battlegrounds' (340,000 users).

'The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon,' released on June 15, rose to second place in daily revenue as of July 23, fueled by the enthusiastic popularity among users in their 20s. As of the third week of July, 29.49% of The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon users were males in their 20s, and 12.64% were females in their 20s, making the 20s age group the largest demographic for both genders. The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon is based on Nexon's flagship longest-running PC game IP, The Kingdom of the Winds, which was released in 1996.

In terms of mobile game revenue share by publisher, NCSoft ranked highest with 34.8%, followed by Nexon (5.8%), Netmarble (4.6%), and Webzen (3.8%). Among these, Nexon's mobile game revenue share in June rose 1.5 percentage points from the previous month to 5.8%, showing an upward trend.

Looking at mobile game usage by category, 'Puzzle & Quiz' had the highest number of users, while 'Role-Playing' had the highest average usage time per person. The top mobile game in average usage time per person was NCSoft's 'Lineage 2M,' recording 9.8 hours. This was followed by NCSoft's 'Lineage M' (8 hours), Webzen's 'MU Archangel' (6 hours), and Netmarble's 'Lineage 2 Revolution' and The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon, each with 5.6 hours.

Meanwhile, the monthly active users (MAU) of mobile games on the Android operating system (OS) in June totaled 19,844,303, about a 4% increase compared to the same period last year (19,173,146). The estimated mobile game revenue for the first half of this year was 2.8327 trillion KRW, marking the highest revenue ever recorded for the same period. This is a 1.3 times increase compared to the same period last year. The average spending per user on Google Play's Android OS was 16,828 KRW in June, about a 24% increase from 13,566 KRW in the same period last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.