EA found the Perfect Business Partner in Korea

I am not a huge fan of game though, Korea is famous for its advanced game market, especially in online game. Pearl Research, American consulting firm, forecasts the online games market in Korea will exceed $1.7 billion by 2009, driven by new releases and a fervent gaming culture.

Following chart is Top online game in Korea on October 2008.

Most of games are developed and published by Korean game company,except World of Warcraft which is developed and published by Blizzard. Among these online games, FIFA online 2, ranked as number 3, is developed by both EA(www.ea.com) and Neowiz(www.neowiz.com)

EA traditionally have made package games such as Sims, Need for speed, Battlefield, NBA, and FIFA series. To get into the online game business EA invested the Korean online game company Neowiz, currently EA is the second shareholder of Neowiz. Neowiz is Korean game company, operating online game portal Pmang(www.pmang.net),  top 3 game portal in Korea. Together with Neowiz, EA focused on getting the FIFA series into its online version.

FIFA online 1 was launched in 2006 in Korea and the year after the second version of the game, FIFA online 2, was established. FIFA online 2 is currently reaping its success in Korea  with revenue of around 2 million dollars per month.

I think FIFA online has pretty successed to enter not even Korean online game market also global online game market.  EA is trying to make FIFA online successfull at other countries too. FIFA online 2 was launched in Japan to the public on October 2008. Also FIFA online 2  is preparing to get launched in China and other markets. On November 28, FIFA online 2 will start open beta test globally (If you want to see more about FIFA online 2 open beta test, visit here)

Following video is intro for FIFA online 2, please enjoy.