Bang Jun-hyuk, Chairman of Netmarble, visited the Netmarble booth at ‘G-STAR 2024’ on the 14th and made remarks. [Financial News] “Winning the grand prize with ‘Solo Leveling: Arise’ is very meaningful as it has showcased the value chain of K-content as a global leading model.”
Chairman Bang made a surprise visit to ‘G-STAR 2024,’ the largest gaming exhibition in Korea, held at BEXCO in Haeundae-gu, Busan, on the 14th. Netmarble won the grand prize at the ‘2024 Korea Game Awards’ held the previous day with ‘Solo Leveling: Arise.’ The Game Awards are given to games representing Korea for the year. It has been nine years since Netmarble last won the grand prize with ‘Raven’ in 2015.
Speaking to reporters at BEXCO, Chairman Bang expressed his happiness, saying, “It’s been such a long time since we last won the grand prize, so I am very pleased.”
This year’s grand prize winner, ‘Solo Leveling: Arise,’ is a game based on the intellectual property (IP) of the webtoon and web novel ‘Solo Leveling,’ which has a global cumulative view count of 14.3 billion. On its release day, it achieved sales of 14 billion KRW and reached 50 million global cumulative users in just five months, marking a successful performance.
Chairman Bang described the current domestic game market as facing “very challenging times” and said, “The domestic game industry has repeatedly experienced growth and stagnation, and it is currently in a stagnation phase.”
He highlighted ‘multi-platform’ and ‘trans-media’ as future game prospects. Chairman Bang stated, “Recently, 30-40% of games are released as multi-platform. Even at Netmarble, 70-80% of the games in development are following a multi-platform strategy.” This means the strategy of moving across mobile, PC, and console platforms has become common. Trans-media refers to a story that expands and converges across various media. Chairman Bang added, “Netmarble has been pursuing a trans-media strategy for about 5-6 years and has now gained some competitiveness.”
He continued, “If we connect the great IP universes of Korea with new stories in games and expand to various platforms to increase accessibility to users, it will be a great opportunity to overcome material exhaustion or media limitations. ‘Solo Leveling’ has clearly demonstrated this potential, and the new work ‘Game of Thrones: Kingsroad’ is also expected to confirm this potential in the global market.”
He also unveiled a strategy to showcase good IP across multiple platforms while actively expanding globally. Chairman Bang said, “The upcoming games we are preparing will be divided into two: internal IP half and recreated IP half, so that Korean items can be accepted globally,” and added, “We will slightly adjust strategies based on the game’s genre, playability, and target market.”