MMORPG
AMDG Acquires SEA License for Lineage II
After almost a year of courtship, South Korean game development giant NCsoft and Philippine publisher Asian Media Development Group have closed a $5.5-M deal to distribute Lineage II not just in the Philippines, but across Southeast Asia.
The exclusive $5.5-million marketing and distribution deal with the South Korean company marks the first time that NCsoft has signed a non-subsidiary to distribute its game. It will also be the first time for AMDG to expand its operations outside the Philippines.
In an interview with hackenslash, AMDG chief operating officer Ronald Allan Aquino said that under the partnership, all NCsoft products, primarily Lineage II, would be solely distributed in the region, which will start in the Philippines, followed by Singapore and Malaysia.
“While we will distribute Lineage II in the Philippines, we’ll be looking for partners who will distribute it in other countries,” Aquino said.
Likewise, Aquino said they are preparing the buildup of their server facilities in the Philippines to host the local Lineage II players.
“We’ll be launching the game in the next half of the year, simultaneously in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia,” Aquino said.
Lineage II, including its predecessor Lineage I, is a major success among the massively online game triple-A titles that have come out of South Korea, with an estimated 14 million subscribers globally. It is currently being played in Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, and the United States, among others.
Asian Media Development Group (AMDG) locally distributes one of my favorite games: NCsoft’s Guild Wars. They powered through weak initial Philippine sales of Guild Wars Prophecies, reaping dividends when slow-burn word of mouth sold out Guild Wars Nightfall over a year later. The four-year-old Philippine online game market is flooded with smaller titles; AMDG is betting we’re ready for bigger brands. In terms of global subscriptions and recognition, the Lineage series is right up there with World of Warcraft; this deal brings the Philippines one step closer to WoW.
The only other MMORPG sequel announced for the Philippines this year is Ragnarok 2, and I sincerely doubt that deal went anywhere near $5.5 million. This Lineage II deal is probably the biggest in Philippine online gaming history.
Personally, I’ve been waiting for Lineage II to come to the Philippines since its stunning visuals first caught my eye two years ago. I’m definitely putting some Xfire hours into this one.
(Story by Alex Villafania. Interview video by Joey Alarilla.)
Happy Wintersday!
I’m celebrating the sanitized Saturnalia you call Christmas in the game world of Guild Wars, where we call it something more straightforward: Wintersday.
This Christmas, forget the fairy tales about Santa Claus and Baby Jesus. Saint Nicholas of Myra is long dead, and the philosopher Jesus of Nazareth was born in September. Celebrate this Holiday Season for what it has always been since the days when winter gave people an excuse to break free from the daily grind of working in the fields, long before the Christian church and big business bastardized and exploited it: a time to cast off the yoke of social norms, a time to go wild.
In other words, it’s time to play.
