In a clear telegraph that Smilegate RPG is focusing on launching in the major Eurasian countries (east of the main European countries which tends to be negotiated as part of the NA/EU region) first, the company announced that GameOn will be the Japanese publisher of Lost Ark after signing the contract at a ceremony held on July 4th in South Korea. The company currently has publishing contracts in place for China, Russia, and the home market of South Korea (which is self-published by Smilegate RPG; the subsidiary of Smilegate that solely handles Lost Ark).
GameOn is one of the larger publishers in Japan for MMORPG’s that have been primarily developed in South Korea. The portal platform is known as Pmang and hosts South Korean MMORPG’s such as ArcheAge, Black Desert Online, TERA, and Bless Online (which GameOn announced would be closing on August 8th). GameOn is a subsidiary of Neowiz (the parent of Neowiz Bless Studio (NBS) before it was reorganized back into the parent company; NBS itself was the development arm for the failure known as Bless Online).
My point of highlighting this is that Smilegate is not averse to signing publishing deals with other companies whose parent corporations are direct competitors in South Korea. Launch details will be announced by GameOn in the future.
