– In 2021, domestic game industry sales are expected to increase by 11.2% and exports by 5.8%.
– Ranked 4th with a 7.6% share of the global game market
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Park Bo-gyun) and the Korea Creative Content Agency (Director Cho Hyun-rae, hereinafter referred to as Conjin-won) published the ‘2022 Korean Game White Paper’, which summarizes the statistics and trends of the game industry at home and abroad in 2021.
Sales in the domestic game industry in 2021 were tallied at KRW 20,991.3 billion, up 11.2% from the previous year. This is the first time the domestic game industry market has exceeded 20 trillion won. Exports increased by 5.8% from the previous year to $8.67287 billion (approximately KRW 9.9254 trillion*). (* Bank of Korea 2021 annual average trading standard rate of KRW 1,144.42 applied)
In 2021, the number of domestic game industry workers was identified as a total of 81,856 people. The number of game production and distribution workers is 45,262 (55.3%), and the number of game distribution workers is 36,594 (44.7%).
On the other hand, Conjinwon predicted that the domestic game market would reach 22.7 trillion won in 2022 and that the game industry would continue to grow steadily with continued efforts to expand platforms and diversify genres.
◆ Game production and distribution are still mobile-oriented, and game distribution is recovering due to the easing of social distancing
In 2021, mobile game sales amounted to KRW 12,148.3 billion, accounting for 57.9% of the total game industry sales. It was followed by PC game sales of KRW 5.6373 trillion (26.8% share), console game sales of KRW 1.052 trillion (5.0% share), and arcade game sales of KRW 273.3 billion (1.3% share).
Revenue by game platform grew substantially compared to the previous year (PC game growth of 15.0%, mobile game growth of 12.2%, arcade game growth of 20.3%, and console game growth -of 3.7%). Game distributors, such as PC rooms and arcade game rooms, whose sales declined significantly due to the impact of Corona 19 in 2020, showed signs of recovery thanks to the easing of distancing (PC room growth rate of 2.4%, arcade game room growth rate of 8.6%).
◆ Korean game industry maintains 4th place with 7.6% of the global game market share. Narrowing the gap with 3rd place
The size of the global game market in 2021 was $219.758 billion, up 8.7% from the previous year. Korea’s share in the global market was 7.6%, ranking fourth after the US (22.0%), China (20.4%), and Japan (10.3%), the same as the previous year.
The market share increased by 0.7%p from 6.9% to 7.6%, narrowing the gap with third place compared to the previous year. By platform, the share of PC games was 13.2%, ranking third after China and the United States, and the share of mobile games was 10.6%, ranking fourth after China, the United States, and Japan.
In 2021, Korea’s game industry exports increased by 5.8% year-on-year to reach $8.67 billion (approximately KRW 9.9254 trillion). The proportion of exports was in the order of China (34.1%), Southeast Asia (17.0%), North America and Europe (12.6% each), and Japan (10.5%).
The number of imports increased by 15.3% to 312.33 million dollars (approximately 357.4 billion won in Korean currency), the highest figure in the last 7 years. Compared to the previous year, exports to China slightly decreased, but exports to Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America increased.
The ‘2022 Korea Game White Paper’ contains various industry information, including surveys and analyses of domestic game companies and game distributors, and anyone interested in the game industry can visit the Conjinwon website (www.kocca.kr) free can be downloaded as
