But success with titles such as Pucca's Restaurant and I Am Fashion is only the start for the company.
It's now taking advantage of the buoyant Korean - and global - market with new titles for a new audience.
A good opportunity then to get some information from marketing director Daniel Hyun Lee.
Pocket Gamer: Can you give us some background about MobCrete - how you formed and the sort of games you make?
Daniel Hyun Lee: MobCrete was founded by three people in early 2011, who had a belief that the mobile social gaming industry would continue to boom.
We have a vision of developing social titles with unique cooperation and competitive elements. Our current games are Pucca's Restaurant, FairyWoods Patisserie and most recently I Am Fashion.
On your website, you state "We love horizontal dispute". What does that mean?
There are many errors in the day-to-day development process of making a mobile social game and horizontal dispute is one of the keys to resolving the issue.
The production team's decisions can ultimately decide the fate of a title. We believed that an equal voice of opinion, with logical reasoning, from all members of the team is highly important to decide the best outcome and this process will eventually benefit in effective time management.
You're best known for the Pucca's Restaurant game on iOS. Can you explain how it came about and how it's performed?
The idea of Pucca's Restaurant derived from a widely popular game genre, which was social games at that particular time, and we chose restaurant as the theme. We also believed that Pucca was a well-known global character and pursued a character licensing deal [with the Disney-owned Korean company Vooz].
Pucca's Restaurant has achieved over 3 million downloads and our strongest markets are South Korea (28 percent), United States (22 percent), China (12 percent) and Brazil (7 percent).
It has also peaked in the top 10 grossing charts in 11 countries.
You've been active on iOS, but not on other mobile platforms. What are your plans for Android, Windows Phone etc?
In 2013, we plan to service on multiple platforms. Pucca's Restaurant was released on Google Play in late January and we now have an in-house process where simultaneous releases on iOS and Android are possible.
Your latest game is I Am Fashion. Why do you think fashion is a good subject for a mobile game?
It is risky to develop a fashion-themed title as it is very subjective and depends heavily on visual aestheticism. However, we have a strong female audience and were compelled to design a fashion and shopping-based game.
We also have team members who majored in fashion and we, in general, love fashion.
There's a lot of competition in the fashion app/game genre so why do you think it will stand out from the competition?
I Am Fashion's competitive edge is in its graphics. We believe that the main character appeals to all females and our in-house designed costumes are outstanding.
Brands are very important in fashion, so how are you looking to integrate real-world fashion brands into the game?
We are in the midst of cooperating with real-world fashion brands and look to promote their products within the game. This was an important marketing factor which we had thought of from the beginning.
You have your own Mob+ social network. Why did you decide to create your own network and can you reveal any figures about the number of users it has?
Mob+ is an important platform which is integrated into all MobCrete titles for cross promotion purposes.
It is still in its early stage and will be constantly upgraded to increase the social graph of our titles and utilised as a base for analytics.
As a Korean developer, do you focus mainly on the Korean market, or are you also looking to gain players in Europe, US and/or other Asian countries?
We plan on becoming a global developer. We have established an office in Shanghai, China, and look to extend our market coverage in Korea, China, Japan, South East Asia, as well as focusing on the US and European markets.
The Korean mobile market is booming thanks to Android and KakaoTalk. How will MobCrete be using these trends to grow in 2013?
There have been recent successes on Asia's SMS platforms such as KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat. Their greatest asset is converting non-gamers into gamers and as a developer, this is good news.
However, it is important to develop with a game mechanism that is customised to their platform and the competition is becoming more fierce. We are currently analysing whether our titles would be successful on their platform.
What other games should we be expecting from MobCrete in 2013?
We have been heavily focused on the female genre themes up until now. In 2013, we plan to extend our coverage to the male audience by servicing five titles with midcore and hardcore elements.
Thanks to Daniel for his time.
