Korean game industry revenue breaks 20 trillion won in 2021

Hundreds of visitors gather to participate at the G-Star 2022, the biggest annual game festival in Korea, on Nov. 20, 2022. [YONHAP]

The game industry's annual revenue grew by 11.2 percent in 2021, maintaining an upward trajectory unbroken since 2013, a report said Monday.

Gaming company revenue two years ago was 20.99 trillion won ($16.52 billion), the first time ever above the 20-trillion-won mark, according to a year-end report published by the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca), a government institution.

The local gaming industry has been growing steadily over the last decade, but displayed exceptional growth in 2020 when market revenue spiked by 21.3 percent due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The agency forecast revenue for 2022 grew by 8.61 percent to 22.7 trillion won.

In 2021, mobile games generated more than half of all domestic-game revenue, as has been the case in recent years.

Mobile games generated 57.9 percent of domestic revenue, at 12.2 trillion won. PC revenue was 26.8 percent, at 5.6 trillion won.

Revenue for PC bangs increased 2.4 percentage in 2021 to 1.8 trillion won. For arcades, the revenue increased 8.6 percentage to 39.6 billion won. Revenues for PC bangs are 8.8 percent of the domestic gaming market and arcades 0.2 percent.

Global game market revenue grew 8.7 percent to $219.8 billion in 2021. Korean tanked fourth, with 7.6 percent of the global market, after the United States, China and Japan.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]