Lost Ark Developer Smilegate Partners With Russian Publishing Giant Mail.ru

By Jason Winter, News Editor December 21, 2018

Lost Ark is coming to the West soon! Or at least as far as Russia, though a recent publishing deal might hint at who will be taking the reins of the game in Europe and North America.

Smilegate appears to have a deal in place with Mail.ru to (according to the Google Translation of this page) "gradually begin negotiations for Lost Arc's [sic] successful entry into the Russian market." There's even a Russian Lost Ark website, la.mail.ru, complete with all the information you'd expect -- in Russian, of course.

Now that Mail.ru has its fingers in Lost Ark for Russia, it's only natural to wonder if its subsidiary, My.com, will take up publishing duties for the rest of the world. It would seem like a strong bet, as the company already publishes several MMORPGs, like Skyforge and Revelation Online, in the West. Most of those are free-to-play games, as well, which means we could be one step closer toward a confirmation of Lost Ark's monetization scheme.

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In this article: My.com, Lost Ark, Mail.ru.

About the Author

Jason Winter, News Editor
Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

Noworth 2 years ago

I tho Smilegate aint blatantly retarded braindead scumbags ...

My.com has the SHITTIEST SERVERS from all other publishers of F2P MMO's that comes from ASIA and on top of that, they all become PAY TO WIN.

Lost Ark RU is already PAY2WIN. Before even the Beta starts... FREE STAT POTS and CARDS for $$

RIP You, poor souls /me included/

RIP The Greatest MMO ARPG created so far ;(

gree 2 years ago

THEY DIG GRAVE WORKING WITH PUTLER SCAMMER BOT AND TROLL FARMS FROM MAIL RU

Bl4ckRanqe 2 years ago

Well, anything's fine, as long as it's not released by Gameforge or Aeria Games/gamigo in the EU.

gree 2 years ago

mail ru is company of scammers , prepare for pay to win, cash shops and subscription, all mail ru baked games are dead , they read your mails and their software spy on you, company working or government and putler bot and troll farms, scammers and hackers, from your ips and accouns will be sent fake propoganda and attacks, be careful , its not worth to sit in jail !

Arc_Archer 2 years ago

EHeee..loool! time to forget this game was thing now.. Mail.ru ahahahah this is a joke? waited so long for Lost Arc... this what we get ! time forget this ever was made

Ezekiel 2 years ago

Does it mean that EU release is just about the corner? Since there is not much point in hoping for new Diablo I'll cross my fingers for LA!

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some random scottish guy 2 years ago

wow wow wow wow wow.............Seriously this old chestnut ????

Ok guys heres how it works with Asian games that go to Russia first, They give Russia a lower version of the game and change some thing in the game like an attribute and rename it so they can get away with two different versions of the game that has copywrite for both versions.

They then create a different market for the cash shop to drive revenue up more but as its under a different copywrite they can pay less TAX.

They will then release another version for EA/NA and it will be an ever lower version of the existing one in Russia so they can claim a third copywrite and create another new cash shop market to get away with paying even less TAX....

How many times will asians markets do this before people realize there just getting hand me downs and wil be stuck on lower patch versions of the game untill the asian or russian one is updated then and only then will you get an update.

this is typical of most asian games that move to Russian / Eu / NA

LOL seriously guys dont waste your time with this game, its pretty clear to me what there trying to do. Such a shame because I love ARPG, after hearing this news I dont think ill be playing lost ark.