South Korea's games industry targets expansion with Gamescom and ChinaJoy presence

South Korea is one of the world’s largest mobile games markets, which AppMagic estimates generated $4.5 billion across the App Store and Google Play from in 2025. That puts it as the fourth most lucrative country for in-app spending.

It’s been dominated by local players including NCSoft, Kakao Korp, Netmarble and Nexon. The latter has its HQ in Japan, but its roots are firmly based in South Korea. In fact, the Korea Game Society expressed its concerns over the rumoured Tencent acquisition of the company last year.

Over the years, Chinese studios have broken into the market. Century Games, FunFly, River Game, Tencent, Microfun, MiHoYo and others all had top grossing games in the country last year.

Back in 2020, out of the top 20 grossing games in South Korea, 17 were published by local companies - seven of those in the top 10. In 2025, 11 were based in South Korea as US platform Roblox and Turkish studio Dream Games also broke into the top grossing rankings.

The market generated $5.15bn in 2020, falling 12.6% to $4.5bn in 2025. In a pre-pandemic comparison, the market is up 5.9% from 2019 levels.

Global expansion

As South Korea’s industry faces stiff competition and a mature market, the country’s government agency, the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) aims to promote its culture and entertainment to the world.

The body had a large booth in Gamescom's B2B area this year, while in 2026 it also had a setup in ChinaJoy with further plans to have a presence in Thailand for Gamescom Asia and at the Tokyo Game Show. The delegation is partially funded with government support, but not entirely.

“We have a lot of people living in Korea … and we still think our market is rather small,” KOCCA team leader for the game and emerging technology content division Kyung Seog Kang tells PocketGamer.biz. 

“We want to introduce international players so that we can grow and expand our market.”

Kang says that previously, South Korea’s market was focused more on PC games. The industry has spawned popular franchises like Lineage, MapleStory, Dungeon & Fighter and CrossFire.

“Now it’s going more towards mobile games and we roughly think it’s about 60% now.”

Studios represented at the South Korean Gamescom booth included NW Corp, Abutton, Hypercent, Myturn, Nanali and others. Elsewhere at the show were other developers from the country, including Krafton with its own booths.

Asked whether sending delegations abroad has been worth it, Kang says KOCCA has been doing this for a decade now and plans to keep going for a few more years yet to keep building relationships for its industry.