Smilegate


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

History

Smilegate's yearly revenue in 2021 was 1.43 trillion KRW with 593 billion won operating profit. It was estimated to be worth $7.55 billion in 2022. In 2018 it had about 2,200 employees. Smilegate subsidiary Stove, which operates a store platform of the same name that digitally distributes video games, is dedicated to indie game developers.

''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. 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 by Game Developer.
According to a list 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''

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. It became Smilegate's first successful title in the West, with the United States at one point accounting more than half of its revenue. In June 2023, it released in China through Chinese publisher Zlong Games. By August 2023 it had reached $650 million in global sales. Epic Seven utilizes an in-house game engine designed to support older devices and improve loading times.

''LORDNINE''

LORDNINE is a mobile MMORPG developed by NX3GAMES and published by Smilegate Megaport. It was released in July 2024. The game experienced emergency maintenance and client instability issues during its initial launch period. Within a week of release, it reached No.1 in revenue on both Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Games

These are the games developed or published by Smilegate. Publisher and release dates are for South Korea unless otherwise noted.
YearGameDeveloperPublisherGenrePlatform
2005TalesRunnerRhaon EntertainmentSmilegate MegaportActionMicrosoft Windows
2007CrossfireSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate
Tencent,
Lytogame, Smilegate West, Smilegate Megaport 		FPSMicrosoft Windows
2010ProBaseball Manager OnlineSegaSmilegate MegaportSportsMobile
2011Freestyle2: Street BasketballJoyCityJoyCity,
Smilegate Megaport 		SportsMicrosoft Windows
2012MVP baseball onlineSmilegate Entertainment SportsMicrosoft Windows
2013Devil Maker: TokyoNcrew EntertainmentSmilegate MegaportRPGMobile
2013Eastern BladeSmilegate Megaport
2014Qurare: Magic LibraryPalmple, iO StudioSmilegate MegaportRPGMobile, PlayStation 4
2015Dragon FateLion Games StudiosSmilegate EntertainmentRPGMobile
2015BunnypangSmilegateSmilegate MegaportActionMobile
2015AZERATimber GamesSmilegate EntertainmentMMORPGMicrosoft Windows
2015Crossfire: MobileSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentFPSMobile
2017SoulWorkerLion Games StudiosSmilegate EntertainmentMMORPGMicrosoft Windows
2017Super Tank RumbleLumidia GamesSmilegate EntertainmentActionMobile
2017TAHNTencent GamesSmilegate EntertainmentFPSMobile
2017ChaosMastersNeoactSmilegate EntertainmentRPGMobile
2017WarReignRed Sahara StudioSmilegate EntertainmentRTSMobile
2018Arcane StraightGamepleteSmilegate MegaportCard Battle RPGMobile
2018Lost ArkSmilegate RPG, Tripod StudioSmilegate RPGMMORPGMicrosoft Windows
2018Epic SevenSuper CreativeSmilegate EntertainmentRPGMicrosoft Windows, Mobile
2019ROGAN: The Thief in the CastleSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentStealth Action AdventureMicrosoft Windows
2019Focus on YouSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentAdventureMicrosoft Windows, PlayStation 4
2019Final AssaultPhaser Lock InteractiveSmilegate EntertainmentRTSMicrosoft Windows, PlayStation 4
2020Crossfire: ZeroSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentFPSMicrosoft Windows
2020Crossfire: WarzoneJoyCitySmilegate EntertainmentRTSMobile
2021Crossfire HDSmilegate EntertainmentTencent FPSMicrosoft Windows
2022CrossfireXSmilegate Entertainment, Remedy EntertainmentSmilegateFPSXbox One, Xbox Series X/S
2022Crossfire: LegionBlackbird InteractivePrime MatterReal-time strategyMicrosoft Windows
2023OUTERPLANEVA GamesSmilegate MegaportRPGMobile
2023Crossfire: Sierra SquadSmilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentFPSMicrosoft Windows, PlayStation 5
2024LORDNINENX3GAMESSmilegate MegaportRPGMobile
2025Chaos Zero NightmareSuper CreativeSmilegate EntertainmentRPGMicrosoft Windows, Mobile
TBASkySaga: Infinite IslesRadiant WorldsSmilegate EntertainmentSandbox MMORPGMicrosoft Windows
TBACrossfire 2Smilegate EntertainmentSmilegate EntertainmentFPSMicrosoft Windows
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