[ICTF2025] Conquering Japan, the birthplace of subculture... What is the secret to 'Blue Archive' becoming a legend?

'Blue Archive' is a monumental game that captured the hearts of local gamers when it was released in Japan, the birthplace of subculture. The game, which rose to the top of the Japanese market immediately after its release in February 2021, has successfully recovered in popularity and sales with every major update, and has maintained its popularity to this day, four years later. Furthermore, it has successfully pioneered the position of domestic subculture games by gaining explosive popularity in the Korean and global markets.



Blue Archive is the first subculture game released by Nexon Games, which won the Korea Game Awards twice in 2016 and 2020 with 'Hit' and 'V4'. While most subculture games adopt a dark and hopeless worldview called 'apocalypse', this game differentiates itself with a story in which the user, who takes on the role of a teacher assigned to the school city 'Kibotos', leads students to complete missions.



As the title Blue Archive suggests, it has a bright and refreshing atmosphere, and it stimulates users' interest by adding persuasiveness to the story through attractive characters, each with their own settings and gameplay characteristics.



'Blue Archive'. [Photo = Nexon Games]



Japanese OST album image of 'Blue Archive'. [Photo = Nexon Games]



The secret to Blue Archive being loved for a long time as a top subculture game is its development competitiveness based on genre expertise and user-friendly service. In August of last year, Nexon Games established the IO Headquarters, a specialized development organization for the subculture genre. The IO Headquarters is an organization that oversees MX Studio, which is in charge of the Blue Archive live service, and RX Studio, which is currently developing new products. The development team with expertise in the subculture genre has gathered together to share know-how and work hard to maximize competitiveness.



The IO headquarters has set a vision of creating a "different world that users want to dive into" and aims to present subculture games with attractive characters, immersive stories, and vivid worldviews. In addition, they are increasing their contact points by conducting various events and collaborations where Blue Archive fans can experience the IP in real life.



In fact, Blue Archive held a large-scale offline event to commemorate its 4th anniversary in Japan at the Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Center in Tokyo from January 17 to 19 of this year. The live broadcast held during the event revealed information on the 4th anniversary update, drawing much attention and recording a peak viewership of over 130,000 at the time.



Thanks to the success, IP expansion is also in full swing. They released the official comic "Blue Archive Anthology" based on the chaos in Academy City Kibotos, the stage of Blue Archive, and produced and sold various goods such as tapestries, keychains, and acrylic dioramas through collaboration with Japanese distributors.



The OST and official artbook are also being released continuously as a series, and both the OST and artbook are sold out every time they are released. From April to June 2024, the Blue Archive TV animation 'Blue Archive The Animation' was also aired in Japan.







Want to hear the secret to the success of 'Blue Archive'?



At the ICT forum 'Disruptive Innovation in Genre Platforms: Hear Know-How from Game Pioneers' hosted by Anews24 at 2 PM on May 22nd at the Ferrum Hall of the Ferrum Tower in Jung-gu, Seoul, Yongha Kim, Head of IO Headquarters at Nexon Games, will give a keynote speech and share his experiences in conquering the domestic and international subculture game markets with Blue Archive. For more information, visit the Anews24 homepage.



Head of IO Headquarters Yongha Kim started his career at Phantagram in 2000 and has been dedicated to game development for 25 years. Since then, he has participated in the development of 'Mabinogi', 'Curare: Magical Library', etc. at Nexon, Identity Games, Smilegate, etc., and is currently the head of IO Headquarters, a subculture specialized development organization of Nexon Games, and is in charge of the development of MX Studio's Blue Archive and RX Studio's 'Project RX'. He has contributed to expanding the base of domestic subculture by continuing active communication.





https://www.inews24.com/view/blogger/1838841

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