SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The value of South Korea’s e-sports industry increased 4.2 percent on-year to 97.3 billion won (US$87 million) in 2017, a government report said Friday. The market size of the nation’s e-sports, which refers to competitive video gaming, has steadily expanded in recent years, increasing from 60.27 billion won in [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The founder of South Korea’s major online game publisher Nexon Co. is poised to sell a controlling stake in the firm’s holding company, industry observers said Thursday. Kim Jung-ju is offering a combined 98.64 percent stake worth 6 trillion won (US$5.32 billion) in Nexon’s holding firm NXC Corp. and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s gaming industry is the world’s fourth largest in sales, but none of the local companies rank among the top producers, a report said Tuesday. According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, the industry’s sales in October came to US$5.76 billion. The number ranked fourth behind $34.4 billion [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Korea Bizwire) – It has been reported that if game addiction is classified as a disease, the decrease in sales in the domestic gaming industry will be in the billions of won. Whether game addiction should be classified as a disease under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) will be discussed at [...]
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 (Korea Bizwire) --KT Corp., South Korea’s leading wireless and fixed-line services provider, will launch a virtual reality service on Internet protocol television by the end of the year, its CEO said Wednesday, in a move to boost its presence in the growing business. Hwang Chang-gyu made the announcement in a meeting [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Online gaming giant Nexon Korea Co. launched a labor union on Monday, a first for a game service provider in South Korea. “The establishment of the Nexon union will act as a tow truck to improve labor conditions in the gaming industry as a whole,” the union said in [...]
SEOUL, May 15 (Korea Bizwire) — NCSOFT Corp., a South Korean online game maker, will showcase the new version of its mobile megahit game, “Lineage M,” for the global launch, the company’s chief said Tuesday. “Lineage M” — bringing the original “Lineage” title to the mobile platform — has become the most popular app both [...]
SEOUL, May 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Bluehole Studio Inc. revealed its plans on Monday to distribute bonuses to the developers of the hugely popular online game “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (PUBG for short), developed by its subsidiary PUBG Corporation. According to Bluehole, the company will pay out up to 5 billion won per employee in incentives. Bluehole [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean government will invest nearly 19 billion won to develop augmented reality platforms over the next three years. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced plans for a number of major technology research projects worth 18.7 billion won on Monday, including AR platform development, support for blockchain-based [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean retail giant Lotte said Thursday it will open an outlet dedicated to game products in Seoul this week amid a rapid growth of the country’s game industry. Lotte Shopping Co. said it has remodeled el Cube in Hongdae, western Seoul, into a shop exclusively for games and [...]