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2020 WHITE PAPER ON KOREAN GAMES
  • 2020 WHITE PAPER ON KOREAN GAMES | SUMMARY

  • 2020 WHITE PAPER ON KOREAN GAMES

     

    Summary

    • Part 1. Gaming Industry Trends in 2019
      • 1) A 9.0% increase in the domestic gaming market in 2019, compared to the previous year, amounting to 15.575 trillion KRW
      • 2) The mobile gaming market amounted to 7.7399 trillion KRW, making up 49.7% of the total gaming industry sales
      • 3) Domestic gaming market size expected to show high growth in the future
      • 4) Exports in 2019 amounted to 6.65778 billion USD, with a 3.8% YoY increase
      • 5) Korea possesses a 6.2% share of the global market: in the top 3 of the global PC gaming market, and in the top 4 of the global mobile gaming market
      • 6) A total of 916 production/distribution companies, 11,871 Internet cafés, 600 gaming arcades, and 89,157 workers
      • 7) The global gaming market in 2018 grew by 5.0% YoY
    • Part 2. Major Issues in the Domestic Gaming Industry in 2019
      • 1) The golden age of classic games and classic IP
      • 2) WHO (World Health Organization) assigns a disease code “6C51” to gaming
      • 3) Active blockchain game development and judgment suspension
      • 4) Improvement of game-related regulations
      • 5) Abolition of a blanket wage system
      • 6) Concerns about the dissemination of game watching and copyright infringement
      • 7) Discussion for the protection of rights and interests of e-sports players has started
      • 8) Acceleration of game companies’ union with other industries
      • 9) Console, multiplatform and cross-platform
    • Part 3. Game Utilization Characteristics
      • 1) Overall game play rate
      • 2) Game utilization rate by platform
     

    Introduction


    In 2019, the domestic gaming market was worth 15.575 trillion KRW, reflecting a 9.0% increase compared to its 14.2902 trillion KRW value in 2018. From 2010 to 2019, the domestic gaming industry has steadily grown over a period of 10 years with an average annual growth rate of 9.0%. Though the market size decreased by 0.3% in 2013, it immediately rebounded in 2014, and has been continuing to rise in 2019.

    As users gain convenient access to countless games, the mobile platform has replaced the PC platform as the core platform. Accordingly, since 2017, the scale of the mobile gaming market has surpassed the PC gaming market. Mobile gaming market sales amounted to 7.7399 trillion KRW, covering almost half of the total gaming industry sales. In 2019, PC gaming sales amounted to 4.8058 trillion KRW, making up 30.9% of the share of the total gaming industry. Sales from Internet cafes reached 2.409 trillion KRW, or 13.1% of the market. Console gaming sales enjoyed a 3.7% share in 2018, then increased to 4.5% in 2019 with a sales volume worth 694.6 billion KRW.

    Only the sales volume of PC games declined by 4.3% from the previous year, while the sales volume of other gaming media increased. The growth rate of console games in terms of sales, in particular, was less than 41.5% in the previous year, but it grew the most at 31.4%. The growth rate of mobile games in terms of sales was 16.3%, while the growth rate of arcade games in terms of sales was 20.6%. The growth rates of gaming in Internet cafés and gaming Introduction 2020 WHITE PAPER ON KOREAN GAMES 3 arcades were 11.6% and 2.4%, respectively.

    In 2018, domestic gaming industry exports amounted to 6.65778 billion USD (7.7606 trillion KRW, applying the annual sales standard of 1,165.65 KRW by the Bank of Korea in 2019). The following year, imports were worth 298.13 million USD (approximately 347.5 billion KRW).
    The following outlines the key status and issues of the domestic gaming industry.

※ Please check the attached file for the detail.