Interview

SundayToz on the continuing value of Kakao in the rise and rise of Anipang

The power of connecting friends with games

SundayToz on the continuing value of Kakao in the rise and rise of Anipang

Korean developer SundayToz is best known for the massive success of Anipangon Kakao.

Released in July 2012, it was the first game to demonstrate the high virality of the social messaging platform, gaining 30 million downloads and a peak of 10 million daily active players.

It's also provided SundayToz with the opportunity to build out a portfolio of casual mobiles games, not to mention a strong merchandising business.

Now, with 2014 in sight, the company is looking to expand into other Asian markets, as well as making the most of opportunities provided by other social messaging networks such as LINE and WeChat.

We caught up with VP of global business development Angus Lau to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: Can you provide some background to SundayToz?

Angus Lau: SundayToz was founded by three friends - Kevin Lee, Hyunsoo Im, and Chanseok Park. All were previously developers at some of the largest online games company in Korea - NHN Hangame, NCSoft, and T3 Entertainment, respectively.

In January 2009, SundayToz was officially established and started with social gaming on the web, developing games on Cyworld's AppStore, a social gaming platform offered by the Korea's largest social network at the time.

From 2009 to 2011, we released six games on Cyworld and became the most successful developer on that platform with over 4 million users playing our games.

How early did you get involved with mobile games?

We started experimenting with mobile in 2009 and we launched our first game, Anipang, on iOS in March 2010 (no longer available).

It was based on the web version found in Cyworld AppStore social game platform. We then launched another mobile game, a lightweight version of our popular social game on Cyworld, Aqua Story, on iOS in June 2011.

Then in July 2011, we shifted our focus to mobile completely. We did this because of several factors.

First, we noticed a decreasing number of people using Cyworld. Second, we saw an increase number of smartphone adoption. And finally, Cyworld was hacked in July 2011, where all 35 million users' personal information were stolen.

The combination made it easy for us to move forward and focus solely on mobile.

Screens from Anipang

In March 2012, we launched our first mobile game, Aqua Story, a virtual aquarium game, on a number of platforms with Com2us as the publisher. And since July 2012, we've been developing games on the Kakao platform.

You're known as one of the first success stories on Kakao, but how surprised were you by the success of AniPang?

Since the company was founded, our goal was to connect actual friends with games. We saw Kakao's platform as the perfect medium for that as they were a communications company with access to personal contacts on your address book in your mobile phone.

Because of that and our experience in developing social games on Cyworld, we approached Kakao and proposed the idea of adding a games platform on top of their messenger.

As for the success of Anipang, we understood the potential, but we're still surprised at the results. Anipang saw a slow gradual growth initially, the opposite of many games that launched after us, where downloads shoot up the first couple days of launch.

It took Anipang a few weeks before reaching a sizable number and eventually the downloads just kept on coming. We hit 10 million daily active users in under two months and had 3 million concurrent users at peak.

What's also impressive is Anipang is still the number 1 mobile game in Korea in terms of daily active suers. Since August 2012, we've been in the top 10 grossing Android app chart in Korea.

Despite the number and variety of games being launched, Anipang is one of the few, if not the only one that's been able to have that longevity.

Do you think Kakao will be as important a promotional channel in future?

Kakao should still be an important promotional channel in the foreseeable future. Excluding virality on the platform, I would consider it a work-in-progress.

Developers can already create stickers for games and cross-promote between their portfolio of games and we're seeing improvements. Kakao expanded their cross promotion policy to allow developers to cross-promo with each other and Kakao's partnership with Tapjoy and IGAWorks allow developers another channel to acquire users. We'll likely see more improvements down the road.

Of course, like any mature gaming platforms, Kakao has become more competitive. It's important for developers to focus on the quality of their games. If the game is fun, engaging, and for some, culturalized, chances are, the game will be viral and reach the top charts with Kakao and likely stay there.

Are you looking at supporting any other messaging tools such as WeChat, LINE etc?

Definitely! We're in constant contact with them and hope to have presences on other mobile messengers such as WeChat, LINE, and others.

Unfortunately, those platforms are still very closed which makes it difficult for any developers to get in. This is expected; we've seen the same from Kakao when they first started.

Extending the franchise, a recent release has been Anipang Tycoon

In addition to those mobile messengers, there are platforms that we're keen on. There are the usual suspects like Facebook, Google+, and Game Center on Apple, but there are also a number of others. So we are working on addressing a variety of platforms that are available to developers.

Anipang has been compared to Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga. Do you agree with that comparison? Do you hope to take a similar approach in terms of making it a global brand including a strong level of merchandising?

There are similarities so I can see why and how there have been comparisons. With our popularity and the nature of our character designs, it made absolute sense to go into merchandising in Korea.

We started merchandising in December 2012, just months after the launch of Anipang, and have a strong business locally. Our plush toys can be found at the Toys R Us stores in Korea, literally on the same shelves as Angry Birds.

To achieve the same degree of success outside Korea, we'll need to first create a presence in global markets with our games. We expect to have some of our games out in markets outside Korea in early 2014 and if it's well received, it'll make sense to follow up with merchandising.

SundayToz is known for casual games while other Korean companies are known for hardcore games, so should we expect SundayToz to start releasing core games?

SundayToz has always been a casual games company, so don't expect us to release core games any time soon. We think casual games is still the bigger and better market in Korea, especially with Kakao.

For example, we currently have two casual games, Anipang and Anipang Mahjong in the top 20 top grossing Android app chart in Korea.

For the foreseeable future though, we'll continue developing casual games in Korea. Beyond Korea though, it's a mix bag but our plan is to also release casual games in those markets.

Outside of Korea, what are the most important markets for SundayToz?

We'd like to have our games in everyone's hands around the world but initially, we'll be focusing on Asia; this includes countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

And because we have previous experience and actual game data from these countries with Anipang, we have a better understanding of the users and the market.

For China, we think there are plenty of opportunities for that market, but there are also just as many challenges. We all know how fragmented the market is, so finding the right partner is key.

In addition, having the right game that fits the market is critical too. We're still reading up on China and learning what we can about the market.

Thanks to Angus for his time.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.