The rise of Lyto, an online gaming giant in Indonesia

Andi Suryanto, co-founder and CEO of Lyto

If you play online games and you’re from Indonesia, it’s likely you will have heard of Lyto or the game it published, Ragnarok Online. The company was among the pioneering online game publishers in Indonesia. Until now, Lyto is still a force in the scene with online games such as Crossfire, Ragnarok 2, and the newest release, Phantomers. Andi Suryanto, co-founder and CEO of Lyto, now also spearheads the newly formed Indonesian Games Association.

Study or startup?

Andi started work at age 20 in an IT company in Jakarta, while he was still in university. After graduation with a degree in IT, his parents wanted him to pursue a master’s.

“But because I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, we also discussed what business opportunities there are for the young generation,” explains Andi.

The situation turned into a dilemma. He already accepted to continue studying in Australia, but at the same time, he wondered if he should jump right into entrepreneurship.

In the end, Andi recalls, his father was fine with either choice. “If you do business, that will be your school fee, if you do a master’s, it’s also your school fee. You have to choose one,” Andi’s father said.

Andi chose to start his own business. His ideas were half-baked at first, but he took them to his dad anyway to strike up a discussion. The veteran businessman rejected all but one of Andi’s ideas: online game publishing.

Andi wasn’t much of a PC gamer, because he and his brother grew up in the era of consoles, but he was aware of the success of online gaming in China, India and the US.

Few online game publishers existed in Indonesia at that time, so Andi jumped on the opportunity. This marked the beginning of Lyto. In Chinese, Lyto means “more profit.” The company was officially created in 2003 by Andi, his brother Willy, and a friend. Andi became CEO.

Six months of sleepless nights

After a solid research phase, Andi chose to start with Ragnarok Online, which was booming in Korea and the US at that time. Ragnarok Online is a game based on a comic by the same name. Without doubt, Andi thought, this game would be eagerly received by online gamers in Indonesia. He prepared a proposal for Gravity, the Korean game developer and publisher of Ragnarok Online. To his astonishment, it got accepted immediately.

Ragnarok Online wallpaper, source: Lyto

Andi’s business proposal included trustworthy data, but the other reason was timing. Korean game publishers wanted to expand to Indonesia, as the online gaming market in Korea was becoming tight. Indonesia, a fast growing developing economy and one of the most populous countries in the world, sounded like a lucrative opportunity to the Korean firm.

Gravity agreed to enter a business partnership with Andi under one condition: Lyto needed to build a separate legal entity together with the Koreans. That wasn’t easy and what followed were many sleepless nights.

Will they pay to play?

New competitive market