Nexon CEO says Korean game companies need to be more like Ubisoft

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Nexon CEO says Korean game companies need to be more like Ubisoft

Published: 24 Jun. 2025, 19:22 Updated: 24 Jun. 2025, 23:13

CHO YONG-JUN
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Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Nexon Games CEO Park Young-hyun gives a presentation during the Nexon Developer Conference on June 24, in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. [CHO YONG-JUN

Some Korean games have been received well in the past few years, but the nation has yet to produce a Game of the Year — a title that can hang with the likes of Elden Ring, Overwatch and God of War. Nexon Games CEO Park Yong-hyun thinks he has the solution: Pivot away from Korean-style development and be more like Ubisoft.

“To survive, big players should create blockbuster games,” Park said during his presentation at Monday's Nexon Developer Conference in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. “Chinese and Eastern European developers have already made that bet and it is paying off,” he said, referring to Game Science's Black Myth: Wukong, which sold 20 million copies in its first week and made its developer one of the most profitable game companies on Steam, and Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, which broke even on its first day of release.

Ever since the rise of PC gaming in the late 90s, Nexon, NCsoft, Netmarble and other Korean developers have focused heavily on developing online free-to-play games heavy with microtransactions, followed by mobile games with a similar business model, such as MapleStory, Dungeon & Fighter and Lineage.

Nexon Games CEO Park Young-hyun gives a presentation during the Nexon Developer Conference on June 24, in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. [CHO YONG-JUN

Such games became mainstream within Korea and allowed the domestic game industry to export $8.39 billion in 2024. But the impact stayed within China and other Asian countries, with shipments to the United States and Europe accounting for only 14.8 percent and 6.7 percent of that figure, respectively.

Korean publishers, in response, have been developing titles aimed at global audiences, such as Nexon’s The First Berserker: Khazan, Netmarble’s Game of Thrones: Kingsroad and Pearl Abyss’ Crimson Desert.

“We thought, with 20 years of game development experience, we would be able to solve issues as we release games for the global market,” Park said.

But that hasn't necessarily played out in the titles released this year. While Khazan was praised for its gameplay mechanics, critics criticized the game’s narrative and the storytelling aspect as simplistic, generic and underwhelming. Kingsroad, meanwhile, received complaints for being too focused on making gamers pay to progress.

While developers have gone global, Park feels they need to go even more global. For example: earlier trailers.

Nexon Games CEO Park Young-hyun gives a presentation during the Nexon Developer Conference on June 24, in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. [CHO YONG-JUN

Park gave the example of Ubisoft title Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, which released gameplay trailers three years before the game's release in 2013. Rockstar Games dropped trailers for its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI, currently slated for a mid-2026 release, in 2023 and in June 2025, respectively.

“It’s not that they dropped the trailer thinking the game would be released around the corner,” Park said. “They knew the game would be released years after.”

Korean games, in contrast, have traditionally only revealed gameplay trailers a couple months before games are released, the same time marketing promotion kicks in.

But some feel that releasing gameplay trailers in the early stages of development cuts the flow and often results in a hyped-up, sugarcoated trailer followed by an underwhelming final product. The prime example was Ubisoft's Watchdogs and the first entry of The Division, which were criticized for lackluster final gameplay when compared what their initial trailers promised.

“The Division became one of the most anticipated games with its 2013 E3 trailer, but the launched game wasn't up to that expectation,” Park said.

“But to market brand-new intellectual property globally, we need gamers to talk about the game. We need the media to write about the game. So we have to come up with a very charming trailer for them to enjoy,” Park said.

“You can’t sell the game globally without hyping up the gamers for many years.”