When the leading mobile game publisher in South Korea, Netmarble, makes a $130 million investment in one of the fastest-growing mobile game publishers in the West, SGN, it attracts plenty of attention. While the mobile games market continues to grow, it’s getting increasingly difficult for new games to break into the top-grossing tier. “The industry is consolidating,” said co-founder and CEO of SGN Chris DeWolfe. “There are increasing barriers to entry to new players, and to be a leader requires lots of capital and lots of infrastructure.”

The deal makes good sense for both companies by combining strengths. SGN plans to use the cash to acquire smaller game producers, expand marketing efforts, and gain a greater foothold in Asian markets. Netmarble looks to use SGN to expand its presence in Western markets. “SGN is a rapidly growing company with proven experience in developing and servicing top grossing casual games in the West,” Netmarble CEO Youngsig Kwon said. “With SGN’s many years of experience in global marketing, I am confident that SGN will make a perfect partner for Netmarble to enter the Western market.”

SGN president, COO, and co-founder Josh Yguado spoke with [a]listdaily about the investment and what it means for SGN and mobile gaming in general.

The substantial investment from Netmarble is partly intended for game studio acquisitions, according to the press release. What sort of game studios are you looking for — small or large? With experience in casual games or other games?

Size is less of a determining factor in our target selection than quality and proven success. We are looking for studios that have at least one title that proves that the team has the vision and experience to execute at a top-tier level.

Our preference is casual, which allows for more strategic synergy — but we’re open to all genres. Any space in which the studio believes they are ahead of the pack creating a best-of-breed game in their genre.

When you look to accelerate organic growth in the mobile games market, what are the best ways to do that — other than just releasing more games?

Growth is driven more by quality than quantity. Look at the most successful developers in the space — most only have 2-5 titles in the top 100. Supercell is probably the biggest Western developer by revenue right now with only three titles.

SGN has solidly established itself in the casual games market. Strategically, do you think the best growth opportunity lies in that area or in expanding into other types of games?

We are already working to expand into other genres, but we want to do so in a thoughtful and methodical way. We tend to focus on genres where we have a leg up and believe we can create a top downloaded game in that space.

Will this investment change SGN’s strategy regarding the mix of original IP and licensed IP the company will publish?

We will continue to explore licensed IP on an opportunistic basis. In general, however, I would be surprised to see more than a third of our games at any time from licensed IP. We have a top-tier creative team at SGN with designers and artists from companies like Pixar, EA, Activision and Disney. When looking at a potential IP project, there has to be confidence in the brand/characters/story and its ability to drive actionable awareness — almost as a substitute for dollars we would otherwise use to market the game.

Looking ahead for the next year, what’s got you most excited in the gaming industry?

As the market continues to evolve, we see top players taking bigger and bigger risks in new titles. This means higher production values, as well as more original IP and game mechanics. We think the bar is going to continue to rise over the next 12-24 months as the top games become bigger and better than ever before.