G-Star game festival to take place in Busan from Nov. 17 to 20

Busan is the place to go for game enthusiasts this November.

This year’s G-Star game festival will take place from Nov. 17 to 20 at Busan’s Bexco convention hall in tandem with the Esports Championships East Asia, which will take place from Nov. 16 to 18 at the Brena Esports arena.

The main sponsor of G-Star 2022 will be game publisher Wemade, which will take up more than 200 booths in both the business-to-customer and business-to-business sections. The company will also set up other events around the southern port city in collaboration with the organizing committee.

Other companies taking part include Nexon Korea, Netmarble, Sandbox Network, Kakao Games, Krafton and TikTok Korea. The organizing committee is currently accepting applications from game companies and food vendors who wish to particpate. The Korea Internet Corporations Association and NCSoft will jointly fund the booths of nine gaming start-ups at the annual festival.

The Esports Championships East Asia is hosted by China, but Korean and Japanese contestants will take part in Busan due to travel restrictions because of Covid-19.

The competition was held for the first time last year, co-organized by the Korean, Chinese and Japanese governments with the aim of facilitating the growth of Esports industries in the three countries.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]