Some Korean games have performed well in recent years, but the country has not yet created a game of the year that can rival Elden Fargo, Overwatch or God of War.Nexon Games CEO Park Yong-hyun believes that he has found a solution: abandon the traditional Korean development model and follow Ubisoft.

At the Nexon developer conference in Banqiao, Gyeonggi Province on Monday, Park Yong-hyun said: “To survive, big companies must build phenomenal games, and developers in China and Eastern Europe have bet on this path and have made great returns.”

He refers to the game science "Black Myth: Goku", which sold 20 million copies in the first week, making its developer one of the most profitable game companies on Steam; and the Polish War Horse Studios "Nation of Heaven: Save 2", which recouped its development costs on the first day of its release.

Park Yong-hyun mentioned that "Black Myth: Goku" wanted to use the successful cases of Chinese developers to support his point of view: Asian manufacturers are likely to produce a top-notch work in the global market, as long as they dare to transform, dare to invest, and dare to create high-quality games with global appeal.

Since the rise of PC games in the late 1990s, Korean developers such as Nexon, NCsoft, and Netmarble have focused on developing online free games full of micro-transaction mechanisms, and then turned to mobile games with similar business models, such as "Story of Adventure", "Dungeon and Warriors" and "Paradise".

These games have become mainstream in South Korea, and have also promoted the Korean game industry to achieve exports of US$8.39 billion in 2024.But these impacts are mainly concentrated in China and other Asian countries, with exports to the United States and Europe accounting for only 14.8% and 6.7%.

Faced with this situation, Korean publishers began to develop works for global players, such as Nexon's First Berserker: Kazan, Netmarble's Game of Thrones: The King's Road, and Pearl Abyss's Red Desert.

"We thought that with 20 years of game development experience, we could solve various problems when facing the global market."

But the games launched this year have not fully met expectations.Although the gameplay mechanics of "Kazan" have been well received, its narrative and storyline are criticized as simple, mediocre and unattractive."The King's Road" was complained about paying too much.

Although South Korean developers have "going global", Park Yong-hyun believes that they are not "global" enough.For example: The trailer was released too late.

He took Ubisoft's "Terminal Blockade 2" as an example, which released a live trailer in 2013, and the game was not officially launched until three years later.R-star "GTA6" also released its trailer early, with trailers in 2023 and June 2025 respectively, but the game will not be released until mid-2026.

"When they released the trailer, they didn't think that the game would be launched immediately, but they knew that the game would be released a few years later, and they insisted on releasing new content every year."

In contrast, Korean-made games usually only release real-time videos a few months before they are released, and they also launch marketing promotions.

However, some people believe that the release of real-time trailers in the early stages of development can easily interrupt the development rhythm, which often leads to excessive publicity and beautification trailers, but the final product is disappointing.Typical examples are Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and Division Lockdown's first works, both of which were criticized when they were finally launched, far from the promotional video.

Park Yong-hyun said: "The promotional video of "The Division" at E3 2013 made it one of the most anticipated games, but the final version did not meet that expectation. But if we want to bring the brand new IP to the global market, we have to make players willing to talk about the game.

We need the media to be willing to cover this game.So we had to make a very charming trailer for them to like.If you can't keep players enthusiastic about the game for many years, you won't be able to sell the game in the global market.”

Park Yong-hyun hinted that if the Korean gaming industry wants to create a global popular IP like "Black Myth: Goku", it cannot continue to only make Korean krypton gold mobile games, but should boldly invest in the production of high-quality, global narrative-driven host/PC large-scale productions.Moreover, global publicity and promotion should be carried out from the early stages of the project, and long-term exposure of previews, media and communities should be used to slowly establish international influence.