Record-Breaking Scale 'G-STAR 2024' Opens... New Releases Flood In

Opening Today at Busan BEXCO... Celebrating 20th Anniversary
Nexon Participates as Main Sponsor
Yoon "Will Actively Support the Gaming Industry"

The exterior view of Busan BEXCO, the venue for Korea's largest game exhibition, 'G-STAR 2024.' Photo by Lee Jung-yoon

The largest domestic game exhibition, "G-Star 2024," celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was held on the 14th at BEXCO in Busan with the largest scale ever. Leading Korean game companies such as Nexon Korea, Netmarble, and Krafton unveiled their new titles at this event. Following the global game distribution platform Steam, the streaming platform SOOP also participated, expanding the scope of the event.

The opening ceremony, held at 10 a.m. that day, featured a congratulatory video from President Yoon Seok-yeol, continuing from last year. President Yoon stated, "The government will improve unreasonable regulations and actively support game production using new technologies so that Korea's game industry can gain global competitiveness," adding, "We will steadily pursue various policies to ease the difficulties faced by our companies entering overseas markets."

He also said, "We will make further efforts to create a fair gaming environment and protect gamers' rights." The opening ceremony was attended by Kang Shin-cheol, Chairman of the Organizing Committee and President of the Game Industry Association; Park Hyung-jun, Mayor of Busan; Yoon Yang-su, Director of Content Policy at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; Seo Tae-geon, Chairman of the Game Rating and Administration Committee; Yoo Hyun-seok, Acting Director of the Content Promotion Agency; Kim Jung-wook, Co-CEO of Nexon Korea; Kwon Young-sik, Co-CEO of Netmarble; and Kim Tae-young, CEO of Webzen.

At the opening ceremony of 'G-Star 2024' held at BEXCO in Busan on the 14th, President Yoon Suk-yeol is delivering a video congratulatory message. Photo by Lee Jung-yoon

This year, Nexon, celebrating its 30th anniversary, drew significant attention. Nexon participated as the main sponsor for the first time in seven years and set up a large exhibition hall with 300 booths in the B2C exhibition area. They also installed over 500 demo devices, allowing visitors to experience four new titles: "First Berserker: Kazan," "Project Overkill," "Supervibe," and "Hwansae Chwihojeon Online."

Netmarble presented two new titles at the event: "Game of Thrones: King's Road," based on the intellectual property (IP) of the drama "Game of Thrones," and "MonGil: STAR DIVE," an action role-playing game (RPG) that inherits the previous game Monster Taming.

Krafton, which recorded its highest quarterly sales, showcased titles including "Hi-Fi Rush," "Dingcom Together," "Project Ark," and "inZOI." Pearl Abyss demonstrated "Red Desert," the sequel to "Black Desert," while Lionheart Studio, a subsidiary of Kakao Games participating for the first time, introduced four projects under development, including "Valhalla Survival." Gravity presented a total of 17 titles.

Steam was also a notable participant at this event, making its debut at G-Star and planning to introduce several indie games. SOOP prepared events such as communication with streamers.

The core side event, the game industry conference G-CON, featured presentations by various experts. Yoon Myung-jin, CEO of Neople, a Nexon subsidiary developing "First Berserker: Kazan," and Yoichi Erikawa, founder and CEO of Koei Tecmo, a Japanese game company famous for the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" series, delivered keynote speeches. An Moo-jung, a senior researcher at LG CNS, gave a presentation on creative works using generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Major game company owners and CEOs also appeared. At the "2024 Korea Game Awards," hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism the day before, Netmarble's "Solo Leveling: Arise" won the grand prize, and Bang Jun-hyuk, Chairman of Netmarble, appeared at the venue. Shift Up, which received the most awards including the Excellence Award with a total of seven, saw CEO Kim Hyung-tae receive the Outstanding Developer Award.