G-STAR 2024, Korea’s largest game expo, kicked off on the 14th at BEXCO in Busan. This year, 1,375 companies participated, the largest number ever. At BEXCO Exhibition Hall 1, the main exhibition of G-STAR, main sponsor Nexon set up a large exhibition space with 300 booths and demonstrated new games such as “Overkill,” “Super Vibe,” “First Berserker: Kazan,” and “The Drunken Tiger Online” to visitors.
Major game companies such as Netmarble, Crafton, Pearl Abyss, and Hive IM also showed off unreleased new games in various genres, drawing the attention of game fans.
The venue was packed with visitors who wanted to experience in advance the major titles that each company is ambitiously developing with an eye on the global market.
Nexon’s “First Berserker: Kazan” was shown in Korea for the first time after being shown at Gamescom in Germany and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, and a long line of spectators formed in front of the preview space as soon as the event opened, with the waiting time exceeding 120 minutes. Pearl Abyss’ “Red Desert” also had its first preview at G-Star, drawing in domestic spectators.
What stands out about the works exhibited at G-STAR this year is the high proportion of works targeting overseas markets such as North America and Europe. It was found that 16 of the 20 or so works exhibited by seven major domestic game companies have confirmed their global release or are considering global release.
Nexon’s “First Berserker: Kazan” and Pearl Abyss’ “Red Desert” are representative examples, and Krafton also brought five new global-flavored works to G-Star, including the shooting game “Project Ark,” which will be unveiled for the first time at this year’s G-Star.
This shows that game companies are positioning the overseas market as a necessity rather than a choice. With the domestic game market stagnating, market expansion is urgently needed to increase sales.
Netmarble presented two role-playing games (RPGs) based on the intellectual property rights (IP) of the TV drama “Game of Thrones” – “Game of Thrones: Kingsroad” and “Mongil: Star Dive” at G-Star. In particular, “Game of Thrones: Kingsroad” is preparing for release in North America and Europe, so its performance overseas is important.
Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk, founder of Netmarble, diagnosed the current state of the industry by saying, “The game industry has experienced repeated growth and stagnation. We are currently in a very difficult period.”
Chairman Bang cited the “multi-platform” trend, where games are enjoyed by switching between mobile, PC, and consoles, and the “transmedia” trend, where excellent IP such as webtoons and dramas are unearthed and expanded into games.
A prime example is the game of the same name, which Netmarble released using the IP of KakaoPage’s representative webtoon “Alone Leveling,” which has recorded 14.3 billion cumulative views globally, and has been downloaded over 20 million times in two weeks, making it a global box office success.
Bang said, “Korea has good IP that can be used globally,” and added, “We will have a strategy of recreating and releasing such IP by linking its worldview with a new story.” In addition to Bang, Nexon CEO Kim Jeong-wook, Netmarble CEO Kwon Yong-sik, Webgen CEO Kim Tae-yeon, and Hive IM CEO Jeong Woo-young also visited the site that day.
Meanwhile, game companies including Lionheart Studio, a subsidiary of Kakao Games, which participated in G-STAR for the first time, as well as Gravity, Webzen and HiveIM, showcased titles they are developing for release next year. Valve Corporation, the
operator of Steam, the world’s largest game distribution platform, also participated in G-STAR for the first time. Steam took part in the ‘G-STAR Indie Showcase’ to promote indie games. Steam allowed visitors to experience games from over 60 unique indie game developers through ‘SteamDeck’, a portable game console developed by Valve Corporation. [Reporter Jeong Ho-jun, Busan]
Source: mk.co.kr
