En Masse Entertainment

En Masse Entertainment
Subsidiary
Industry Video Games
Founded Seattle (2010)
Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States
Key people
 Chris Lee, CEO
Soo Min Park, COO
Sam Kim, VP of Production
Products TERA
ZMR
Fruit Attacks
Pocket Platoons
Parent Bluehole Inc.
Website enmasse.com

En Masse Entertainment is a Seattle-based PC and mobile game-publishing company known for localizing and publishing the Korean MMO TERA in North America. TERA was developed by Bluehole Inc., En Masse’s parent company. En Masse was founded in 2010. Chris Lee is the company’s current CEO.[1]

Company History

Based in Seattle, Washington, En Masse Entertainment specializes in publishing online free-to-play games for PC and mobile platforms. En Masse also has a specialty with localizing video games developed in Asia and publishing them in Western markets. En Masse currently publishes four games:[2] TERA, an online PC roleplaying game from South Korean developer Bluehole Inc.;[3] ZMR (Zombies Monsters and Robots), an online PC third-person shooter developed by Yingpei Games in China;[4] Fruit Attacks, a mobile arcade-puzzle game created by South Korean developer Nanali Studios;[5] and Pocket Platoons, a turn-based mobile strategy game from the Seoul-based Picneko Creative.[6]

En Masse Entertainment was founded in 2010 by Dr. Jae-Heon Yang, Patrick Wyatt, Yong Taek Bae, Brian Knox, and Chris Lee. The company is a subsidiary of Bluehole Inc., the Korean game developer behind TERA, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) that En Masse publishes in North America. The original En Masse leadership team had extensive experience in the video game industry at leading companies, including Blizzard, Microsoft, NCSoft, ArenaNet, Electronic Arts.[7] The leadership team changed in 2012 when Chris Lee was appointed CEO and Soo Min Park was named COO to replace departing founders, Dr. Yang and Pat Wyatt respectively.[8]

Products

TERA

Main article: TERA (video game)

TERA launched in Korea in January 2011.[9] Over the next 15 months, En Masse completed its localization and westernization work and built the infrastructure needed to publish and maintain the game on North American servers. TERA launched in North America on May 1, 2012.[10]

Less than a year after launching TERA in North America, En Masse successfully transitioned the game to a free-to-play model. The transition happened in February 2013 and coincided with the release of the TERA: Rising update. En Masse transitioned paying subscribers to Elite Status players, who received extra perks for paying a monthly fee. However, all content in the game was, and still is, freely and fully available to all players.[11]

En Masse released the first official expansion for TERA on December 16, 2014. TERA: Fate of Arun added four new zones and a new city, increased the level cap for characters from 60 to 65, and added numerous quests, dungeons, and other improvements to the game. This major content expansion was made available to all players free of charge.[12]

On May 5, 2015, En Masse also made TERA: Fate of Arun available through Steam. The Steam launch coincided with another major content release that added a new character class to the game — the gunner.[13] TERA: Fate of Arun quickly became the number one free-to-play MMORPG on Steam, as measured by concurrent users.[14]

ZMR

The next step in the growth of the company after publishing TERA was signing and publishing a second game. En Masse signed a deal with Yingpei Games (Formerly Epic Games China) in 2013 to publish a North American version of the popular, Chinese third-person shooter, Mercenary Ops.[15] Named ZMR or Zombies Monsters Robots, the En Masse version of this squad-based adventure game officially launched in North America in September 2014. ZMR is free-to-play, and is available to download from the En Masse website or through Steam.[16]

Fruit Attacks

In the fall of 2015, En Masse entered another new phase of their growth as a game publisher by launching two mobile games. The first, Fruit Attacks, is an arcade puzzle game where players defend Earth from invading fruit aliens. Fruit Attacks was published on July 30, 2015 on iOS, Android, and Amazon Kindle Fire devices.[17]

Pocket Platoons

Less than a month after launching Fruit Attacks, on August 27, 2015, En Masse released Pocket Platoons, a base-building combat strategy game set in World War 2 Normandy. Pocket Platoons is available on iOS and Android devices.[18]

References

  1. ↑ "Company Overview of En Masse Entertainment, Inc.". Bloomberg. Retrieved October 16, 2015.
  2. ↑ "En Masse Entertainment". En Masse. Retrieved October 16, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Bluehole Names Tera's Western Publisher". GameSpy. Retrieved Feb 24, 2010.
  4. ↑ "'Zombies Monsters Robots' Announced by En Masse Entertainment – A F2P Shooter". SegmentNext. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Fruit Attacks". En Masse. Retrieved July 30, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Pocket Platoons". En Masse. Retrieved August 27, 2015.
  7. ↑ "En Masse Entertainment Debuts as New MMO Game Company". IGN. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
  8. ↑ "En Masse Entertainment Boosts Executive Team with Naming of Veteran Chris Lee as CEO and Hiring of COO Soo Min Park". Business Wire. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
  9. ↑ "Experiencing TERA's Korean Launch". En Masse. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  10. ↑ "After insane development cycle, online game TERA finally poised for launch". VentureBeat. Retrieved April 30, 2012.
  11. ↑ "MMO TERA Goes Free-to-Play". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
  12. ↑ "Tera: Fate of Arun expansion adds continent, quests, and battle arena". PC Gamer. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  13. ↑ "TERA Launches on Steam with New Gunner Class Today". Gamasutra. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  14. ↑ "TERA becomes "the most-played" MMORPG on Steam since launching on May 5". VG 24/7. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Zombies Monsters Robots detailed by En Masse Entertainment". VG 24/7. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  16. ↑ "ZMR is out of beta and live on Steam!". En Masse. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Fruit Attacks Earth Defense Game Launches on Mobile". Ad Week. Retrieved July 30, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Pocket Platoons WWII Strategy Game Launches on Mobile". Ad Week. Retrieved August 27, 2015.
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