The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency announced on the 17th that they published the “2024 Korea Game White Paper,” summarizing the state of the domestic and international game industry in 2023, on the 14th.
According to the report, while the growth rate of the domestic game market in 2023 slowed, the overall game industry continued to grow steadily. The revenue of the domestic game industry in 2023 was calculated to have increased by 3.4% from the previous year, reaching 22.9642 trillion KRW. However, exports decreased by 6.5% to 8.394 billion USD (approximately 10.9785 trillion KRW), based on the average exchange rate of 1307.90 KRW in 2023.
The number of employees in the domestic game industry in 2023 increased by 0.7% from the previous year, totaling 84,970 people. The number of employees in game production and distribution was 51,783 (60.9%), while 33,187 people (39.1%) were in game distribution. For the second consecutive year since 2022, the number of workers in game production and distribution exceeded those in distribution alone.
The Korea Creative Content Agency forecasted that the domestic game market in 2024 would reach 25.1899 trillion KRW. Furthermore, it projected the game industry to continue growing with sustained efforts in diversifying intellectual property (IP) and expanding genres.
In 2023, mobile game revenue was 13.6118 trillion KRW, accounting for 59.3% of the total game industry revenue. It was followed by PC games with 5.888 trillion KRW (25.6% share), console games with 1.1291 trillion KRW (4.9% share), and arcade games with 285.2 billion KRW (1.2% share).
The global game market size in 2023 is estimated to have increased by 2% from the previous year, reaching 205.189 billion USD. South Korea’s market share ranking remained 4th (7.8%), the same as the previous year, with the global ranking unchanged at the US, China, and Japan.
Examining South Korea’s share in the global game market by platform, the PC game market share was 13.2%, and mobile games held an 11.6% share, among others. While the PC game market shrank from 4.6 billion USD in 2022 to 4.5 billion USD in 2023, mobile games rose by 0.2 percentage points to 11.6%, ranking third globally.
In 2023, South Korean game industry exports declined by 6.5% from the previous year, reaching 8.394 billion USD (approximately 10.9576 trillion KRW). By export destination, the distribution was China (25.5%), Southeast Asia (19.2%), North America (14.8%), Japan (13.6%), Taiwan (10.4%), and Europe (6.7%). Compared to 2022, the share to Southeast Asia increased by 5.0 percentage points, while that to China decreased by 4.6 percentage points. Imports were down by 2.5%, reaching 253.765 million USD (about 331.3 billion KRW).