[160727] 500,000 People Downloaded ‘EXORUN’ in 10 Days

Miss. Kim Jin Young, the EXO’s fan, plays a game when she wants to see EXO these days. It is a mobile game called ‘Super Star SM Town’ which adjusted SM Entertainment artists’ intellectual property to a rhythm game. If the user hits the right beat according to the music, he or she gets score and favorite star’s card.

Kim Jin Young said, “I can play the game while looking at my favorite singer. It’s fun that I can get EXO cards. It’s different from watching EXO’s concert or photos.” This mobile game added with the stars’ intellectual property is gaining popularity. It’s also creating a new Korean wave.

SM Entertainment launched a mobile game ‘EXO RUN’ which uses EXO’s intellectual property. It is a running game in which the user selects an EXO character and run while avoiding the objects. 10 days after it was launched, 500,000 people already downloaded the game. Puto Entertainment developed and would manage the game. SM is in charge of sharing the intellectual property and marketing. CJ E&M also launched ‘Boy 24 Pop’ which uses the intellectual property of Boy 24 members from Mnet’s survival audition program. Dalcom Soft is in charge of developing and managing the game. JYP Entertainment launched a rhythm game ‘Super Star JYP Nation’ which uses the images of JYP artists with Dalcom Soft. YG Entertainment is also preparing to launch a game using their intellectual property.

The most successful case of a mobile game that used stars’ intellectual property is Super Star SM Town which used SM Entertainment’s intellectual property by Dalcom Soft. It was launched in 2014 and 8 million people have downloaded it. It has revenue of 10 billion won. The number of playing the game is one billion.

Super Star SM Town could get more downloads by playing the role of a platform that connects the fans and the stars. When it was launched, EXO’s member Chanyeol released a video in which he all clears the game stages and it drew the fans’ attention. There was also the synergy effect of SM Entertainment and the managing company. They made an event called ‘Beat Seulgi’ in which the fans compete with Red Velvet’s member Seulgi.

Dalcom Soft explained, “The fans expect that they would meet EXO members while playing the game. That’s why so many people downloaded this game. It also played a role of communication between the stars and the fans.”

SM Entertainment will invest more on developing mobile games in the future. Instead of just using the intellectual property on the certain items of the games, they will cooperate with many other game companies. Moreover, they use games in various marketing projects such as holding a game competition event during concerts.

An official from SM Entertainment’s new media business team said, “Fans love mobile games. We can make cute characters out of the stars and also use the images as concert videos. We will also develop boar games, artificial reality and augmented reality games.”

Source: k-popism