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Smilegate
View on Wikipedia | This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. (July 2025) |
Smilegate (Korean: 스마일게이트) 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,[2] it is the creator of Crossfire, an FPS game with over six million concurrent players across the globe,[3] 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.[4]
Key Information
History
[edit]Smilegate's yearly revenue in 2021 was 1.43 trillion KRW ($1.08 billion) with 593 billion won operating profit.[4] It was estimated to be worth $7.55 billion in 2022.[4] In 2018 it had about 2,200 employees.[5] Smilegate subsidiary Stove, which operates a store platform of the same name that digitally distributes video games, is dedicated to indie game developers.[6][7][8][9]
Crossfire
[edit]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 (CrossFire Stars). 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 <THE TOP 30 DEVELOPERS>[10] by Game Developer.
According to a list[11] 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
[edit]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
[edit]Epic Seven is a mobile turn-based RPG game developed by subsidiary Super Creative and released in 2018.[12][13][14] It became Smilegate's first successful title in the West, with the United States at one point accounting more than half of its revenue.[13] In June 2023, it released in China through Chinese publisher Zlong Games.[15] By August 2023 it had reached $650 million in global sales.[14] Epic Seven utilizes an in-house game engine designed to support older devices and improve loading times.[16][17]
LORDNINE
[edit]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.[18]
Games
[edit]These are the games developed or published by Smilegate. Publisher and release dates are for South Korea unless otherwise noted.
| Year | Game | Developer(s) | Publisher(s) | Genre | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | TalesRunner | Rhaon Entertainment | Smilegate Megaport | Action | Microsoft Windows |
| 2007 | Crossfire | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Tencent (China), Lytogame (Indonesia), Smilegate West (NA, BR), Smilegate Megaport (Philippines) |
FPS | |
| 2010 | ProBaseball Manager Online | Sega | Smilegate Megaport | Sports | Mobile |
| 2011 | Freestyle2: Street Basketball | JoyCity | JoyCity (US), Smilegate Megaport (South Korea) |
Sports | Microsoft Windows |
| 2012 | MVP baseball online | Smilegate Entertainment (South Korea) | Sports | Microsoft Windows | |
| 2013 | Devil Maker: Tokyo | Ncrew Entertainment | Smilegate Megaport | RPG | Mobile |
| Eastern Blade | Smilegate Megaport | ||||
| 2014 | Qurare: Magic Library | Palmple, iO Studio | RPG | Mobile, PlayStation 4 (2016) | |
| 2015 | Dragon Fate | Lion Games Studios | Smilegate Entertainment | RPG | Mobile |
| Bunnypang | Smilegate | Smilegate Megaport | Action | Mobile | |
| AZERA | Timber Games | Smilegate Entertainment | MMORPG | Microsoft Windows | |
| Crossfire: Mobile | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | FPS | Mobile | |
| 2017 | SoulWorker | Lion Games Studios | Smilegate Entertainment | MMORPG | Microsoft Windows |
| Super Tank Rumble | Lumidia Games | Smilegate Entertainment | Action | Mobile | |
| TAHN | Tencent Games | Smilegate Entertainment | FPS | ||
| ChaosMasters | Neoact | Smilegate Entertainment | RPG | ||
| WarReign | Red Sahara Studio | Smilegate Entertainment | RTS | ||
| 2018 | Arcane Straight | Gameplete | Smilegate Megaport | Card Battle RPG | |
| Lost Ark | Smilegate RPG, Tripod Studio | Smilegate RPG | MMORPG | Microsoft Windows | |
| Epic Seven | Super Creative | Smilegate Entertainment | RPG | Microsoft Windows, Mobile | |
| 2019 | ROGAN: The Thief in the Castle | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | Stealth Action Adventure | Microsoft Windows |
| Focus on You | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | Adventure | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 | |
| Final Assault | Phaser Lock Interactive | Smilegate Entertainment | RTS | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 | |
| 2020 | Crossfire: Zero | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | FPS | Microsoft Windows |
| Crossfire: Warzone | JoyCity | Smilegate Entertainment | RTS | Mobile | |
| 2021 | Crossfire HD | Smilegate Entertainment | Tencent (China) | FPS | Microsoft Windows |
| 2022 | CrossfireX | Smilegate Entertainment, Remedy Entertainment | Smilegate | FPS | Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S |
| Crossfire: Legion | Blackbird Interactive | Prime Matter | Real-time strategy | Microsoft Windows | |
| 2023 | OUTERPLANE | VA Games | Smilegate Megaport | RPG | Mobile |
| Crossfire: Sierra Squad | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | FPS | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 (PlayStation VR2) | |
| 2024 | LORDNINE | NX3GAMES | Smilegate Megaport | RPG | Mobile |
| 2025 | Chaos Zero Nightmare | Super Creative | Smilegate Entertainment | RPG | Microsoft Windows, Mobile |
| TBA | SkySaga: Infinite Isles | Radiant Worlds | Smilegate Entertainment | Sandbox MMORPG | Microsoft Windows |
| Crossfire 2 | Smilegate Entertainment | Smilegate Entertainment | FPS | Microsoft Windows |
References
[edit]- ^ Chung, Grace. "Online Hit Game CrossFire Mints South Korea's Richest Self-Made Billionaire". Forbes.
- ^ Yoon Sung-won. "Smilegate vows to revitalize online game sector". Korea times. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
- ^ Lee Ji-yoon. "[Herald Interview] The woman behind success of 'Crossfire'". Korea herald. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
- ^ a b c Cha, Jun-Ho; Cho, Jin-Hyoung (Nov 14, 2022). "Corporate restructure inevitable at Smilegate as founder faces divorce". The Korea Economic Daily.
- ^ Baek, Byung-yeul (6 September 2018). "Game firm workers setting up labor unions". The Korea Times.
- ^ Smilegate. "Smilegate Megaport Launches Cooking Adventure Game 'BTS Cooking On STOVE: TinyTAN Restaurant' Worldwide". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2025-07-14.
- ^ Sung-won, Yoon (4 June 2015). "Smilegate offers mobile game platform service". The Korea Times. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
- ^ "Smilegate to support small companies with $10 million of funding". Korea JoongAng Daily. 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
- ^ Jeong-yeo, Lim (2019-08-21). "Smilegate Stove brings VR games to Korean Army". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
- ^ UBM TechWeb (2012). GDM JuneJuly 2012.
- ^ Tassi, Paul. "CrossFire: Tencent's Top Earning Free-to-Play Game You've Never Heard Of". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
- ^ Lee, Ju-Hyun (Apr 22, 2024). "Korea's Smilegate unveils new RPG Chaos Zero Nightmare". The Korea Economic Daily.
- ^ a b Sinclair, Brendan (27 September 2022). "Smilegate at 20: Growing beyond Crossfire, reaching beyond games". GamesIndustry.biz.
- ^ a b 이승희 (24 August 2023). "에픽세븐 글로벌 매출 6억 5천만 달러 돌파, 중국 모바일RPG 매출 TOP10 랭크". betanews.net (in Korean).
- ^ 원동현 (2023-11-02). "스마일게이트 '에픽세븐', 중국 출시로 제2의 전성기". gamevu.
- ^ Byung-wook, Kim (23 March 2021). "Why develop in-house game engines?". The Korea Herald.
- ^ 관리자, 스마일게이트 (October 11, 2018). "Everything about the YUNA Engine, the Heart of Epic Seven!". smilegate.
- ^ 김태만 (25 July 2024). "SMILEGATE's "LORDNINE" Makes a Successful Debut Despite Various Issues". gamevu.
