Courtesy of Kakao
Webcomics, well-known by the name of webtoons, originated in South Korea in the early 2000s. Web service giants Kakao and Naver are the top players in the global market which is growing at an annual average growth rate of some 40 percent to reach $60 billion by 2030.
Digital comic book content tailored for the internet environment has become extremely popular in Asian and European countries over the last decade. Kakao and Naver also operate international platforms where authors from all over the world showcase their works. Users can also enjoy South Korean content translated into different languages.
Kakao said that the company released a chat-based interactive story platform called "OROR ep." through Google's Play Store on June 14. The story platform allows users to dive into a variety of selected webtoons and web novel series to interact with other characters and change the ending of the story.
According to the webtoon service operator, the interactive story-building platform is a little different from ordinary online role-playing chat-based games. The operator focused on the interaction between a user and other fictional characters rather than the interaction between human players.
"We are currently open-testing OROR ep. Through Google's Play Store and we will soon start receiving pre-orders prior to the official launching of the service," a Kakao official said in a statement on June 14.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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