League of Legends and NCsoft's Ntreev acquisition, this week in Korean news

[Gamasutra rounds up the week's biggest reports on South Korea's booming online games market from This Is Game, the leading English-language site about the country's game industry.] In our latest round-up of news from South Korea's online games space, we look at NCsoft buying Pangya maker Ntreev Soft, Blade & Soul's upcoming launch, and League of Legends continuing to grow. NCsoft buys Pangya developer Ntreev After seven months of negotiation and rumors of the deal, NCsoft has purchased a majority stake in developer Ntreev Soft from its parent company SK Telecom. It's taking over 76 percent of the studio's shares as part of a ₩108 million agreement ($96 million). Ntreev is best known for creating MMO golf game series Pangya, as well as Trickster Online and Pro Baseball Manager. It will soon publish three games in South Korea: Power Rangers Online, Snail Games' Age of Wushu, and S2 Games' Heroes of Newerth. A representative for Ntreev said that despite the acquisition, there will be no major changes to its structure or its games for now. Blade & Soul to launch in the first half of 2012 NCsoft revealed that it will launch its anticipated martial arts-themed MMMORPG Blade & Soul by June at the latest. It already expects to begin a third closed beta test for the title soon, and will make an open beta test available before the commercial launch. The game has received much attention for its unique visual style from art director and noted character designer Hyung-tae Kim, who made a name for himself working on the Magna Carta and War of Genesis series for Softmax. League of Legends approaching 200,000 concurrent users League of Legends, the free-to-play DOTA/MOBA (Defense of the Ancients/Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game from California-based developer Riot Games, is expected to soon reach 200,000 concurrent users in South Korea. The game launched its Korean servers just three months ago, when it picked up 300,000 registered users in a day. If League of Legends does reach 200,000 concurrent users, it would be the first non-MMORPG to do so in the country since FIFA Online in 2007. [This story was written with permission using material from ThisIsGame Global, the leading English-language site about the South Korean game industry.]