Case Study
As Senior Product Coordinator at Kill3rCombo (KOG Games), I led the North American launch of Elsword Online: building user acquisition, pre-registrations, and launch-day CCU for a top Korean MMO entering a market with no free-to-play playbook.
The Challenge
When I joined Kill3rCombo (KOG Games) as Senior Product Coordinator, the mandate was clear: launch a live-service game and drive growth in North America. The problem was that almost no one had done it yet.
AAA and North American publishers had not pivoted to free-to-play. Most games were still sold as a base product. We were on the frontier of the F2P model in the US, with no established launch playbook to follow. MapleStory had become one of the first Korean MMO success stories in the West, but that path was still the exception.
The game we were launching, Elsword Online, was a top-five title in South Korea with almost no exposure in the United States. That gap between proven product-market fit at home and zero awareness abroad defined every decision: who to reach first, how to position the brand, and how to turn pre-launch interest into concurrent users on day one.
The Strategy
I found the niche US fans who had already played the Korean version and engaged directly in their communities. The audience was small, but it gave us credible early advocates and real feedback before the broader push.
I positioned Elsword for a second niche: anime fans. I created the brand line "Play Your Anime" so the game could compete on identity and fandom, not just genre features, in a crowded MMO market.
I reviewed every piece of copy myself and polished the tone for a US audience. Strong localization was not a nice-to-have. It was how we earned trust with players who had never heard of the franchise.
I helped shape the free-to-play monetization model and pricing strategy for North America, aligning offers with how US players expected to discover, try, and spend in a live-service title.
I built the pre-registration campaign and PR push that turned awareness into a measurable pipeline. Every milestone fed the next: press beats, community updates, and registration goals tied to launch readiness.
I developed in-game and community events that did not exist in the Korean playbook for this market. They gave players reasons to show up at launch and kept concurrent users climbing through the first weeks.
The Results
10K
CONCURRENT USERS
We entered a market with no F2P launch template and left with pre-registration momentum and concurrent users that proved the positioning, localization, and community work had landed.
50K+
PRE-REGISTRATIONS
Players signed up before launch day
10K
LAUNCH CCU
Peak concurrent users at launch
We were not following a playbook. We were writing one for how a Korean MMO could launch free-to-play in North America, find its anime audience, and turn pre-registrations into players in the game on day one.
— Senior Product Coordinator — Kill3rCombo (KOG Games)
From pre-registration to launch-day CCU, I build the acquisition and community strategy your title needs in a new market.