Wemade Max sees its first-quarter loss widen as investment costs rise, including spending on new game development. It plans to seek a breakthrough with multiple new titles, backed by a steep rise in overseas revenue.

Wemade Max said in a regulatory filing on Monday that it posted a consolidated operating loss of 15.3 billion won in the first quarter, widening from 2.4 billion won a year earlier. Revenue fell 30.6 percent to 32.7 billion won, and net loss came to 11.1 billion won. Revenue rose 7 percent from the previous quarter.

The wider operating loss reflected investment costs to secure a base for future growth. These included higher fees tied to revenue growth, expanded new game development and an increase in development staff. Overseas results, however, showed clear growth. Driven by the performance of key titles such as "Night Crows", "Lost Sword" and "Silkroad", first-quarter overseas revenue surged 137.8 percent from a year earlier, lifting the overseas share of total revenue to 45 percent.

Wemade Max is strengthening its medium- to long-term growth base by expanding its portfolio centred on global markets and launching new titles. Night Crows, a core intellectual property, is set to enter the China market within the year and is preparing to launch a follow-up mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the second half. It also plans to release additional gameplay footage for its AAA-grade open-world action RPG "Project TAL" within the year.

It is also expanding its subculture genre lineup. It is preparing for releases within the year including Fluffy Duck's "Make Drama: MAD", a new title using Kodansha's original IP, and Retrocat's collectible RPG "Noah".

It is also working to improve profitability in parallel. Efforts include the official launch of idle RPG "Windrunner Raising" and "Midnight Walkers", as well as a reorganisation of the development direction for "MIR5".

Chief Executive Son Myeon-seok (손면석) said, "We plan to further strengthen global competitiveness through strategic services tailored to the market characteristics of each region, while pursuing global expansion of key titles and discovering new IP at the same time." He added, "We will build a stable growth structure based on each studio's development capabilities."