500 Data Science Specialists... Nexon Intelligence Labs

Choi Yang-hwi, Head of User Profile Team
Pyun Ho-jang, Head of UX Preliminary Planning Team
'Data Science' Established as Core of Game Industry
"Will Transform Game User Experience and Development Environment"

Choi Yang-hwi, Head of the User Profile Team at Nexon Intelligence Labs (left), and Pyeon Ho-jang, Head of the UX Advanced Planning Team.

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Data science has become a key competitive advantage in the gaming industry. It is expanding its scope to create an environment where users can enjoy games more entertainingly and to marketing activities that attract new users.

On the 14th, we met with Choi Yang-hwi, head of the User Profiling Team, and Pyeon Hojang, head of the UX Advanced Planning Team at Nexon’s Intelligence Labs, which researches artificial intelligence (AI) and data science and develops related systems. Established in 2017, Intelligence Labs now has over 500 personnel, processing up to 100TB of data daily.

Team leader Choi is responsible for collecting user information and improving the gaming environment through personalization.

Choi said, "The advancement of user information started with eliminating unpleasant experiences within games," adding, "Using AI to automatically and immediately sanction users who engage in abusive language or unsportsmanlike behavior, or illegal activities that may destabilize the in-game economy, is one example."

Team leader Pyeon works on strengthening game operations and development environments based on the collected data. Recently, in collaboration with animation streaming company Raftel, they are conducting Korea’s first comparative analysis of the characteristics of game users and animation viewers by combining pseudonymized user information. Pyeon explained, "Through a clear understanding of users who enjoy both games and animation or do not, we plan to identify the relationship between user tendencies and behaviors."

By combining pseudonymized information, Intelligence Labs plans to analyze whether user behavior in games shows correlations with other content, such as whether preference for certain games leads to preference for specific animations, aiming to improve services and create synergies. Last year, they also signed a business agreement with Hyundai Card to launch the industry’s first game company-dedicated private label credit card (PLCC).

Pyeon stated, "We believe this can be used to provide features that allow users to watch animation while playing mobile games, recommend games based on the art style of their favorite animations, and select intellectual property (IP) for newly developed games."

Team leaders Choi and Pyeon emphasized that advanced data science businesses will transform the gaming user experience as well as development and operation environments.

Choi analyzed, "As data science advances, it will provide content and information tailored to each user, allowing them to fully focus on the enjoyment of games. This can expand beyond games to gamification cases combined with games in other consumption processes such as YouTube viewing and product purchasing."

Regarding changes in development and operation environments, Pyeon said, "Data science will play a role in allowing developers to focus on creativity by assisting in generating similar maps or characters during game development with AI. In operations, personalized events can be provided to each user, and customer service efficiency can be improved."