PlayHard (CEO Jung-Hyeok Shin) attended the Korea-US Startup Summit, which was held from Sept 20th(Tues) to the 21st(Wed, local time) in Pier 17 in New York, USA.

PlayHard is a mobile game startup that was established in 2015, and alerted the world to their beginning by being selected as TOP3 at the ‘Google Indie Game Festival’ which was held in Korea for the first time.

Their most famous work include △Redbros △Factory inc △Hero factory, and a total of 17 hybrid casual games, including the aforementioned 3, have been launched. In addition, the company explained that they have been able to record download counts that hover around 3.5 million downloads, showing that the company has a firm place in the related market.

PlayHard was able to showcase a variety of their games at the exhibition. Hero factory, one of their most popular titles, is a comically themed game where heroes are produced in a factory who then go into combat. As such, games that can target various types of gamers have been their main focus of development, and they are also developing or preparing the service of not only simulation games, but 1:1 PVP games and RPG games with a casual atmosphere as well.

Through such game services, PlayHard is known to have sales that grow by 2~3 times each year since its establishment. A spokesman explained that they have recorded sales of 5 million USD last year, and they are aiming to hit 9 million dollars in sales this year. In particular, 2 of their recently released simulation games have recorded 2 million downloads over 2 months, showing that it is likely to hit their goals with amazing growth they showed.

A spokesman for PlayHard said, “We pride ourselves on quickly developing and servicing various games based on good ideas. In addition, we are accumulating an abundance of know-how based on these experiences, which gives momentum to game launching and the development and improvement in quality of existing games.” They revealed their reason for attending the summit, saying, “In addition, we are marketing through various mediums to promote our games to and approach more users. This startup summit will also be taken as an opportunity to raise awareness.”

They went on to say, “Moving forward, we are also focusing on searching for partners that will help us grow our company’s game service together. We seek to discuss various kinds of business collaborations with publishers, marketing, and promotion, and we are looking for a publisher with plenty of experience in the PVP genre for the success of Match Master, the PVP game we are preparing to launch.”

On the other hand, the Korea-U.S.STARTUP SUMMIT hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups(Minister Young Lee) and supervised by the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development(Director Yongmoon Kim) and Korea Venture Investment is providing scene of network between South Korean startups and global companies, VC and startups from New York with the nickname Silicon Alley where ecosystem and IT industry are well-developed. Through this event, they are seeking new business models of K-startups and advances into the global market, and promotes domestic investment of global capital. During the event, a corporate PR booth (joint pavilion between large corporation-startup) was set up, and U.S. VC and investment attraction IR, AC, Tech Media, and meetups and seminars were held with companies succeeded to enter the U.S. market.

KOREA - US STARTUP SUMMIT NEWS PAGE  : https://url.kr/4cod53