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Smilegate opens European office to push Crossfire

eSports to be the main focus for the new division

The creators of one of the world's most popular PC games has opened a European office.

Smilegate Europe will take control of the Crossfire IP in the region. Crossfire is a free-to-play tactical online shooter and one of the most lucrative PC games in the world. However, its success has been mostly confined to China and Korea, and has yet to crack major Western markets.

In 2014, the game generated $1.3bn and according to SuperData it was the second most lucrative PC digital title of 2016 (only beaten by League of Legends).

The new European office is based in Berlin and is led by MD and director of technology Emanuel Schleussinger - the former CTO of Aeria Games. Director of operations is Andrzej Ilczuk (who also worked at Aeria Games as director of Live Games), while former Gameforge product marketing director Christian Baur joins as head of marketing.

The company hopes that having a localised presence will help bolstered the title's performance in Europe, and is now creating a German-language version of the title alongside other content targeted at European tastes.

Yet the main focus for the European division is pushing the game as an eSports brand. This includes being part of the IEM Expo in Poland.

Smilegate says that Crossfire has 8 million concurrent users and 650 million registered players. A movie based on the brand is also in the works.