According to the White Paper, the total size of Korea’s game market in 2013 was 9,719.8 billion won.(image:Luciano Martins/flickr)
SEOUL, Nov. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency have published the Game Industry White Paper 2014 which summarized the domestic and international game industry statistics for the year 2013. According to the White Paper, the total size of Korea’s game market in 2013 was 9,719.8 billion won (US$9.05 billion).
This is 0.3 percent lower than 9,752.5 billion won in 2012 and the first negative growth in six years since 2007. In the same year, meanwhile, the global game market made a 4.0 percent positive growth.
The meager performance was more pronounced in the publishing and other marketing areas rather than the development segment. The total sales revenue of the game development area in 2013 was 7,994.1 billion won, up 1.3 percent (101.3 billion won) from the previous year’s 7,892.8 billion won while that for marketing areas shrank 7.2 percent (134.0 billion won) to 1,725.7 billion won from the last year’s 1,859.7 billion won.
The White Paper commented on the current standstill in the market largely due to the lack of “killer app” and said it will continue at least until 2016 with repeated incremental increases and setbacks during the time. One of the most notable trends in the White Paper’s statistics is the rapid rise of mobile games in 2013.
After making a 90 percent growth in 2012, the mobile game market posted a growth of 190 percent in 2013 with 2,327.7 billion won in total. Mobile games now account for 23.9 percent of the total game market. In contrast, the online game market took up a 56.1 percent share with 5,452.3 billion won in sales revenue for the year, down 19.6 percent from the previous year.
In export figures, however, online games were still strong. The total export volume of home-made games was $2,715.4 million, up 2.9 percent from 2012, of which online games took a 90.1 percent share. The main destinations of Korean-made games were China with 33.4 percent, followed by Japan, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe.
By M.H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
