Vainglory brings its mobile multiplayer arena battler to Japan and Korea

Super Evil Megacorp took the idea of the hardcore PC multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) and translated it to a touchscreen experience on a tablet. Now, the company’s Vainglory game will debut in markets that have millions of hardcore mobile gamers: Japan and South Korea.

Vainglory, a game like League of Legends where three players play against three others simultaneously, debuts in the Apple App Store in South Korea and Japan in January.

Super Evil Megacorp is localizing Vainglory for both countries.

“Both Japan and Korea are extremely important for us,” the company said in a blog post.

Japan is big in social and handheld games. And Korea is the place for e-sports, competitive gaming in which players make money. In fact, some games can run profitably for years if they are successful in just one of those markets. GungHo Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons, for instance, has made a killing in the mobile game market for years, and that has given GungHo a multibillion-dollar valuation. And it drew an investment from SoftBank.

As in other countries, Vainglory will be available on the iPad (generation 2 and above) and iPhone models with Metal technology (iPhone 6, 6 Plus, and 5S).