Domestic Game Industry Revenue Expected to Surpass 20 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The revenue scale of the Korean game industry is expected to exceed 20 trillion won this year.

According to the '2021 Korea Game White Paper' published on the 20th by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, last year's domestic game industry revenue was recorded at 18.8855 trillion won, a 21.3% increase compared to the previous year.

The Korea Creative Content Agency forecasted that this year's revenue scale will surpass 20 trillion won based on the disclosed data of listed game companies, which account for 70-80% of industry revenue, the average annual growth rate over the past 10 years, and mid-to-long-term outlook research.

Looking at last year's revenue by sector, mobile games accounted for 10.8311 trillion won, representing 57.4% of the total game industry revenue. This was followed by PC games at 4.9012 trillion won (26.0% market share), console games at 1.0925 trillion won (5.8%), and arcade games at 227.2 billion won (1.2%). Notably, mobile games and console games showed significant growth rates of 39.9% and 57.3%, respectively.

Game distribution businesses saw a significant decline in sales due to the impact of COVID-19, with PC bangs decreasing by 11.9% from the previous year to 1.797 trillion won, and arcade game centers dropping by 48.1% to 36.5 billion won.

Last year, the global game market size increased by 11.7% from the previous year to 209.658 billion dollars. Korea's market share ranked 4th at 6.9%, following the United States, China, and Japan, moving up one position compared to the previous year.

Last year's Korean game export value reached 8.19356 billion dollars (approximately 9.6688 trillion won), a 23.1% increase from the previous year. The export share by country was China (35.3%), Southeast Asia (19.8%), Taiwan (12.5%), North America (11.2%), and Europe (8.3%). Game imports were recorded at 270.79 million dollars (approximately 319.5 billion won), a 9.2% decrease from the previous year.