Interview: Taehyung Kim and Dongkyu Han discuss 10 years of Summoners War and beyond

Com2uS’ Summoners War is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary. That seemed like a great reason to speak to some of the folks from the company all about how it’s adapted in that time to remain relevant alongside what’s coming up in the future.

Can you introduce yourself and your role on Summoners War to our readers, please?

K: Hello. My name is Taehyung Kim, and I’m a producer of Summoners War. Our game celebrated its 10th year with the love of many people. We’d like to take this chance to thank users who’ve been enjoying our game for over a decade.

H: Hello. My name is Dongkyu Han, and I’m in charge of business for Summoners War. Summoners War enters its 10th year of service this year, and I am grateful to all of the users who have supported the game. We will continue to try our best to create better moments with Summoners War.

H: To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we are hosting larger-scale activities both inside and outside of the game.

First and foremost, I will talk about what happens inside the game. SUMMONER 10×10 FESTIVAL is now underway, with a total of ten festivals planned and six events already announced. Please look forward to the remaining four events, which offer diverse rewards throughout the year.

It may be difficult for new users to adjust to the 10-year difference, but in addition to the SUMMONER 10×10 FESTIVAL, we have expanded events for new users, created special shops, and enhanced rewards. We hope that, with these many events and benefits, new users can soon settle in and enjoy Summoners War.

Outside of the game, the 10th anniversary offline events are taking place around the world, including in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Southeast Asia. With so many experiences acquired over the last decade, I hope we can convey our gratitude to our users while also creating cherished memories offline.

10 years in a long time in mobile gaming. What do you believe has allowed Sky Arena to stick around for a decade?

K&H: There are several elements, but we’d like to describe them with three keywords: Game, Global, and Culture.
 
First Keyword: Game

A basic of global service. Focus on the game’s original value, which RPG users can enjoy.
 
Unlike other collectible RPGs at the time of its release, we designed Summoners War to be a challenging game that required players to study opponents and find solutions, all while maintaining the excitement of a classic RPG. We made sure each Monster is usable regardless of its star grade so lots of Monsters are used in dungeons.

Even for the same Monster, it is possible to create various strategies based on Runes, and through discussion of Monsters within the game, it is possible to determine which dungeons they are useful in and how to Rune them. Even now, ten years later, there is extensive user research being conducted.

 
Monster management is a key element of this process, and even now, the Monsters launched in 2014 are used in real-time PvP, meaning that the value of the Monsters summoned by users then is being maintained. When 2nd Awakening was updated, we designed training content for underutilized 2- and 3-star Monsters instead of vertically boosting their grades.

Furthermore, we enabled the summoning of collaboration characters in both general and collaboration scrolls during time-limited collaborations. Original Monsters with the same functions remained available even after the collaboration ended, allowing everyone to have a taste of them.
 
Throughout the decade, we provided solid updates even though they required some time to develop. In the meantime, we’ve introduced Guild Battle, Rift of Worlds, Real-time Arena, Siege Battle, Homunculus, Tartarus’ Labyrinth, 2nd Awakening, Artifact Dungeons, 2vs2 World Arena, and more. Real-time Arena went through three trial services before the official introduction.
 
Second Keyword: Global

Language. Efforts to localize services across the world.
 
We are making significant efforts to localize the service, despite developing the game as a global one-build. We operate content across six servers in four time zones (USA, Europe, two zones in Asia), and the game is playable in 16 different languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.).

 
In addition, we have branches in the United States, Germany, Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia to engage with local users and conduct marketing and live operations based on their sentiments. For example, Tour of Europe, Tour of America, and Tour of Korea engage people with offline events. We aim to localize advertising materials to represent local sentiment in marketing execution as well.
 
Third Keyword: Culture

Summoners War’s distinct culture, which encompasses different game-related genres.
 
Although Summoners War began as a mobile game, attempts are underway to build a Summoners War-specific culture. Since 2017, a competition known as SWC (Summoners War World Arena Championship) has been organized annually, and fan interest has grown to the point that the maximum number of concurrent viewers has reached 150,000.

Following regional cups such as the Americas Cup, Europe Cup, and Asia-Pacific Cup, the World Finals will take place in November to determine the strongest Summoner from around the world. SWC is becoming known as the largest festival and culture among Summoners War players.
 
In addition, we are working hard to provide players with a positive experience with OSMU (One Source Multi Use), which expands to diverse content based on the Summoners War IP. We are investing a lot of work into building a culture unique to Summoners War by generating comics, webtoons, light novels, animation, merchandise, and so on. This allows players to meet and enjoy the different cultures encountered in the game through non-game media.

Throughout its life, Sky Arena has hosted several collaborations. Do you have any upcoming that you can share with us? Or cryptically tease if you can’t say yet?

H: It would be hard to mention it at the moment. However, while we have cooperated with game genres that are well-suited to global audiences, we are also contemplating partnering with IPs from new genres that complement Summoners War and that global fans may enjoy.

Earlier this year, the game released on Steam. Have you learned anything new from recent influx of PC players?

H: The Steam service attracted new users, but it also retained old users. Since Summoners War was created for mobile devices, I knew there was a lot of demand for crossplay, but after the PC version was released and I saw many users playing crossplay, we began to pay more attention to crossplay.

The Steam version service supports not just the keyboard and mouse, but also the Steam deck, and we discovered that it may deliver a somewhat different level of pleasure than the mobile experience.

K: I believe player feedback is really significant. We always review player feedback since many players go above and beyond our expectations and make important comments. Personally, I regularly read community opinions on sites like Reddit, and with the support of our business office and corporations, we provide user feedback from major service countries every week.

Repeat battle is one of the features implemented based on player feedback. In the early days of Summoners War, there was no concept of repeat battle, hence engagements were repeated in single rounds. By incorporating internal ideas based on player feedback, we were able to complete and highlight Summoners War’s unique content rather than plain repeat battle.

Going forward, what changes can players expect? What’s the vision for the next – hopefully – ten years?

K: Our primary goal today and in the future is to continue to provide live services that are in sync with various changes. To have a fantastic 20th anniversary.

Furthermore, by creating and developing more high-quality content under the Summoners War IP in a variety of media and formats, we will establish a brand that everyone will recognize simply by hearing its name.

The Summoners War IP has produced new genre games, and different projects based on the Summoners War universe and story are in the works, including webtoons, comics, and animations.

Likewise, what do fans not have to worry about? What’s not going anywhere?

K: I can assure you that the enjoyment of playing the game will never diminish. We are not only game makers, but also avid gamers. We are a group that will continue to play Summoners War and consider ways to make the game more enjoyable for users. The enjoyment we had while playing our game will endure and thrive.

For anyone who hasn’t played Sky Arena before, what advice would you give them if they’re diving in today? 

H: First and foremost, if you enjoy classic turn-based RPGs, Summoners War is a lot of fun to play. Despite the 10-year delay, we have improved events for new players to help them settle in, created a special shop, and enhanced rewards. We hope you can access Summoners War now, on its tenth anniversary, and enjoy the pleasure.

It may be a specific scenario, but in addition to the Monster debate feature and strategy deck view feature, please check out the EVENT icon on the right side of the screen, and the game tutorials, events, and media content in the Media tab will be quite useful when playing the game.

Just a minor tip. Rune auto-engraving now includes a set setting function. It will be useful for rapidly equipping and playing the Runes of the desired set effect in the beginning.