One of South Korea’s largest game conventions, PlayX4, ran last week at KINTEX Exhibition Center 1 in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. This event not only features various indie games, but also the participation of some of the most notable game companies in the world such as SEGA, Microsoft, and so on, with export consultation and talks for business matching and industry insights.

We had the opportunity to interview Kim Sangjin, General Manager of Gyeonggi Content Agency and the organizer behind the 2024 PlayX4 event, about the blossoming games industry in South Korea. 

Interview is edited slightly for clarity. 

South Korean Game Industry 

Starting off, we wonder what is South Korea’s current standing in the global gaming market as the country has put out some notable games lately.

Kim responded “The figures show that Korea is ranked fourth worldwide, but the difference between Korea and Japan is about 1.8% points. So, South Korea and Japan will share third place in the worldwide market.”

Recently, the South Korean government has announced that they want to give a push to the console game market. As such, we asked Kim how this would affect the Korean gaming market as a whole.

“South Korea was focused on mobile and PC games,” said Kim. “And the government needed to show its support for the console industry. Last year, Neowiz released the game Lies of P, a big hit worldwide. That will affect the gaming industry.”

About PlayX4 

The Gyeonggi Content Agency has run many events in the past. For PlayX4, we asked Kim how much effort was dedicated to the event compared to others. 

“Much effort is put into this event for this year’s PlayX4. It has been planned since last August, and we began preparing in November, so it has taken about six to seven months to plan and prepare for this event. From a Gyeonggi Content Agency’s point of view, PlayX4 is the biggest event we are hosting. When you compare the size of the events, it is the biggest standalone event from Gyeonggi Content Agency.” 

As mentioned, many notable game companies were participating in the event and setting up their booths. One notable one was Nintendo, which we pointed out.

To that, Kim said that Nintendo did organize booths in last year’s PlayX4 event and thus they are participating again this year. “PlayX4 is usually aimed at family audiences, and Nintendo has gotten the most attention from these families. That is why they have made their booths larger this year and are planning to attract more users.”

In regard to PlayX4’s strongest elements, Kim noted “There are many reasons behind the gaming industry’s downturn, but PlayX4’s goal is to find followers for SME developers, which is critical for their success and the success of big companies.”

“These big companies could learn about small game companies and find good games. They could publish the games and work on diversifying their portfolios. One company that received support is HiDea (developer of Cats & Soup), which Neowiz purchased for twenty billion Korean won. Its game has about seventy million downloads, and it got accepted in the Chinese market and started its service there. Likewise, the big gaming companies can find these SME developers, find good games, and diversify portfolios, creating a lively and healthy gaming cycle.”

Future of Korean Gaming Market 

We then talked with Kim about the future of the gaming market in South Korea, and what he thinks are the next steps the country will be taking in the industry. To that, Kim expressed “PlayX4 event aims to allow SME developers to reach the global stage.”

“PlayX4 allows them to meet with a foreign audience, and many companies are getting help exporting their games worldwide. The South Korean gaming industry has been facing a slight downturn overall since the end of COVID-19 when many people went on more trips and played fewer games. That led to fewer games being released nowadays, so the market is facing a slight downturn.” 

“Since then, we have been considering policies to revive the industry. Gyeonggi Content Agency does not support big game companies, so we are considering what we can do to help them. On the other hand, we are also considering what we can do to support the SME developers. The SME developers could go through the big game companies to get help with publishing and other matters, and through that, the big game companies could have a variety of games on their list that could help both companies.“

“We also provide support for transferring to a different platform for the console game part. For example, our agency can support PC and mobile games on various platforms. However, there’s a problem: We cannot be certain which platform will be very popular or which will go down. So, we are focusing on something other than a specific platform but providing an environment to help the games turn into console games.”

Elaborating further on platform porting support, Kim said “There is a project that supports transferring platforms and a place where you can utilize different devices. Consoles are okay, and you can rent them to try out. You can also use the VR team.”

“You can rent out different devices, experience them, and develop them into platforms through those teams. For technical support, there are many special lectures where developers share their knowledge about their developing environment. Many Q&As are actively taking place at those events. We also support education and training programs in the technical field.”

The Growth of PlayX4

Since PlayX4 is an annual event, we asked how the expo has grown since its inception. Kim quickly noted that the event had been continuously growing. He also highlighted that the budget also grows alongside the event.

Kim also mentioned that COVID-19 happened and data before 2019 would be meaningless to bring up. Further elaborating on the event’s growth, Kim provided data saying, “It has been growing ever since, and the budget for PlayX4 has been continuously increasing. However, COVID-19 occurred in the middle, so the data before 2019 can be disregarded. So, aside from that data, the event restarted two years ago, and then there was another PlayX4 that was hosted last year.”

“Compared to the one that happened a year before, visitor numbers increased by more than 20 percent. We expect a 10- 20 percent growth in visitor numbers this year. So by this year, there could be about 110000 to 120000 visitors. Also, the export volume in the B2B sector has been growing and will continue to do so. The fact that foreign media like you came here can signify that this event has grown greatly.”

Message 

As we were concluding our interview, we asked Kim if he had anything else to share and left the following message.

“PlayX4 focuses more on diversity than other B2B gaming events. Our event is the biggest B2B event in Korea’s gaming industry. As you saw before, some lectures were going on. Tomorrow, there will be a future technology game forum focusing on AI technology, and also, during the weekends, there will be a job fair for students. Compared to other gaming events, which mainly focus on B2C, where people just come and enjoy and then leave, PlayX4 focuses on more sectors, such as exporting the game to the World, creating jobs, and much more.”

Here concludes our interview. We would like to thank Kim Sangjin for taking the time to answer our questions.