The Korea Herald

지나쌤

‘Anipang’ creator targets global game market

By Chung Joo-won

Published : Nov. 9, 2012 - 20:41

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Lee Jung-woong, founder of mobile game developer Sundaytoz and creator of “Anipang the Quiz,” plans to plant itself firmly in the global mobile game industry.

Originally, “Anipang” was a game on social network platform Cyworld. As Sundaytoz formed a partnership with mobile SNS developer Kakaotalk, it launched the mobile version of “Anipang” on July 30.

“When I went to the United States lately to check out how people play games there, I found out that only half of the American players would play games on their smartphones,” Lee said during his mobile game panel held at global game convention G-Star 2012 in BEXCO, Busan, on Friday. 
Sundaytoz founder and CEO Lee Jung-woong Sundaytoz founder and CEO Lee Jung-woong

“Korea is a country of speedy action. We will be able to take over the spots in their mobile game market before they do,” Lee said.

The 30-year-old Korean CEO said that part of his vision is to attract people regardless of nationality, gender and game experience. While focusing on building popularity at home, “Anipang” has attracted many expats living in Korea as well.

“I think expats from other countries love ‘Anipang’ because it is conveniently linked to smartphone messengers like Kakaotalk and involves little language barrier,” he told The Korea Herald. “We will continue to do our best to keep up with the popularity among international players.”

Lee announced that although Sundaytoz will not launch any more of the “pang series” games, the company is discussing how to develop more mobile games.

However, the game’s main characters ― six animals and a bomb ― will be commercialized in the same way those in “Angry Birds” of Finnish mobile game developer Rovio Entertainment have been.

“We will be putting up profiles of these characters with their personalities and everything pretty soon, through our official website, Facebook and Twitter,” he said.

In addition to aggressive market penetration and merchandise marketing, Lee has declared to push for the consolidation of a sound, anti-violence game culture.

He adopted the company’s slogan from Columbia Pictures film “Spiderman”: “With great power comes great responsibility.” The company’s ultimate goal is to bring the positive aspect of games to the people, he said.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)