Known for the hardcore RPG and baseball titles that gave it domestic success, and which found a similar audience on the US App Store, Korean publisher Gamevil is now ramping up to expand the sort of mobile games it releases.

As part of that push, it's becoming a proper publisher. Recent release Kami Retro was developed by UK outfit Paw Print, tilt action game Air Penguin came from Enter Fly, while Chalk n' Talk was developed by AP Games.

We caught up with head of Gamevil USA, Kyu C. Lee, to find out more about this change of strategy.

PocketGamer: Why have you started publishing third party games?

Kyu Lee: Traditionally our releases have been focused on internal titles since our distribution channels were carriers's store. This dependency limited us to publishing around 10 titles per year. Now however, with our company focus moving to the open markets, we have more room to publish third party titles.

We've been continuously asking ourselves how much value we could put onto the table for the developers. Creativeness is definitely the core strength of the indie developers, and we believed we could add value on the business and monetisation side.

How do you source your games?

It's a mix of companies that we've been reaching out to and companies reaching out to us. We've been trying to source games that align well with our strategies, but we'll look into any type of game if it is fun.

Are you looking for games just for iOS, or other platforms too?

We try to sign deals for every platform possible if it is a brand new game. Platforms are becoming meaningless as intellectual properties have been transforming well among different platforms. However this is all case by case, and there is no standard rule.

What attracted you to the games you've published?

The games were optimised well for the mobile platforms: Kami Retro in terms of the touch interface, and Air Penguin for tilt controls. Our other recent publishing game, Chalk n' Talk, had a great connected experience real time over the network.

Also, strategically, we're looking into doing more social games in 2011, which is the reason why we signed Train City for Facebook.

How are the games being received?

Kami Retro was featured as Game of the Week by Apple, Air Penguin hit the #1 paid app spot in the US, and Train City surpassed one million monthly active users so we're off to a great start.

The user retention figures and responses that we've been seeing with Chalk n' Talk have been extremely promising too. We're planning to provide more mass marketing within the next month.

How many third party games would you like to publish in 2011?

We've been signing up a lot of new titles lately, and at this pace, our guess is around a dozen, although quality is always more important than quantity.

Thanks to Kyu for his time.