Germany’s Flaregames uses a rap video to make a splash in Korea with Royal Revolt 2

Flaregames, a German publisher of mobile games, has had a rare success with a Western-made game in the ultra-competitive South Korean mobile-games market. In the past week, Royal Revolt 2 has climbed the charts on the leading mobile-chat platform Kakao.

The success tells us something about the global nature of mobile gaming and how clever alliances and local customization can create an opening in an otherwise cutthroat market. And it shows that viral marketing tactics — which would be considered spam in the West — can actually be quite welcome in Asian markets. Flaregames figured out that it had to break a lot of rules to have a successful launch in the East.