Netmarble to Enter New Guro Headquarters Era Next Year... Accelerates Global Expansion

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Netmarble, which will open a new headquarters in Guro next year, plans to accelerate its global market expansion based on its own intellectual property (IP) and intelligent gaming technology.

Confirming Potential of Own IP... Accelerating Global Achievements

According to Netmarble on the 30th, this year’s new releases such as 'A3: Steel Alive', 'Stone Age World', 'Magumagu 2020 Mobile', and 'Seven Knights 2' have confirmed the potential of their own IP games.

Netmarble achieved significant results in its global business this year. 'The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross', released in March, ranked 3rd in revenue on the North American App Store, the first domestic mobile game to do so. It also ranked 1st in revenue on major country app stores such as France and Germany. 'Magumagu 2020 Mobile', released last month in Taiwan, ranked 1st in popularity on both major markets and 2nd and 6th in App Store revenue rankings.

Netmarble plans to continue targeting the global market next year through popular IPs. They are preparing major titles such as 'Seven Knights Revolution', a mobile MMORPG based on the 'Seven Knights' IP, 'Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds', a mobile reinterpretation of the famous game IP 'Ni no Kuni', and 'Marvel Future Revolution', utilizing the Marvel IP.

The MMORPG 'Blade & Soul Revolution', which entered the Asian market in May, is also preparing to enter Western markets.

Netmarble also aims to strengthen game competitiveness through 'intelligent artificial intelligence (AI)'. Since 2014, Netmarble has been researching various technologies with the goal of developing 'intelligent AI that plays with humans.'

The goal is to complete intelligent AI that analyzes user characteristics and appropriately responds to various situations occurring within the game. The Netmarble AI Center is composed of two teams: the Magellan team and the Columbus team.

The Magellan team focuses on creating intelligent games. It automatically measures the difficulty of in-game boss monsters and dungeons, and conducts in-depth research on voice-based AI and translation technology using big data. The Columbus team detects abnormal signs in games. It learns game logs through deep learning algorithms to quickly detect abnormal cases occurring in the game and automatically verifies suspicious play records suspected of abuse within the system.

In May, Netmarble introduced the voice AI 'Monica' in 'A3: Steel Alive'. This is implemented so that when a user says, "Monica, start the main quest" after launching the game, the quest is automatically executed. Various game menus such as viewing the regional map, turning off, using skills, and opening the equipment encyclopedia can be accessed by voice. Netmarble will soon unveil an automatic translation model under development using global data.

Netmarble Preparing to Move into New Headquarters Next Year

Netmarble is also preparing to move into its new headquarters located in Guro-gu, Seoul, next year. Netmarble’s new headquarters, 'G Valley G Square', is a 39-story building above ground and 7 stories underground, with a total area of 180,000 square meters. The space will be occupied not only by Netmarble but also by affiliates such as Coway, as well as companies encompassing various IT and digital content sectors including games, video, animation, and webtoons.

In addition to existing workspaces, the new headquarters will include cultural facilities for local residents such as a character park and a game museum. In particular, 70% of the site will be converted into a park to provide a resting place for local residents and office workers.

At the 'G Valley G Square Development Project' business agreement ceremony, Bang Jun-hyuk, Chairman of Netmarble and Coway, said, "I have deep feelings as this is the neighborhood where I grew up, and I am glad to contribute to good coexistence." He added, "In addition to making the Netmarble headquarters a mecca of advanced IT industry, we will ensure that the facilities are sufficient to coexist with local residents."

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