| Smilegate Group 스마일게이트 | |
| Founded: | June 2002 in Seoul, South Korea |
| Hq Location City: | Pangyo, Seongnam |
| Hq Location Country: | South Korea |
| Products: | Crossfire Lost Ark Epic Seven TalesRunner |
| Revenue: | 1.577 trillion KRW |
| Industry: | Video games |
| Founder: | Kwon Hyuk-Bin |
| Num Employees: | ~3,300 |
| Num Employees Year: | 2023 |
| Parent: | Smilegate Holdings |
| Subsid: | Smilegate Entertainment Smilegate RPG Smilegate Megaport Smilegate Stove Smilegate West Smilegate Barcelona SmilegateRealies Smilegate AI Smilegate Investment Smilegate Asset Management Orange Planet Smilegate Foundation |
| Revenue Year: | 2022 |
| Operating Income: | 643 billion KRW |
| Income Year: | 2022 |
| Net Income: | 63.3 billion KRW |
| Net Income Year: | 2022 |
| Owner: | Kwon Hyuk-Bin (100%)[1] |
Smilegate is a South Korean video game company headquartered in Pangyo. 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 Korea, according to The Korea Economic Daily.[4]
Smilegate's yearly revenue in 2021 was 1.43 trillion KRW ($1.08 billion) 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.[5] Smilegate subsidiary Stove is dedicated to indie game developers.[6] [7] [8]
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
According to a list[10] 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 . 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 is a mobile turn-based RPG game developed by subsidiary Super Creative and released in 2018.[11] [12] 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.[13] 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.[14]
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) | 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 | 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) | ||
| TBA | Radiant Worlds | Smilegate Entertainment | Sandbox MMORPG | Microsoft Windows |