South KoreaKR
Korea is the birthplace of eSports as spectator sport. StarCraft filled television schedules and stadiums here two decades before the rest of the world settled on the word esports, and the PC bang, the neighbourhood gaming café, made play a public activity rather than a bedroom one. That social-first format went global when battle royales reached the world through Krafton's PUBG: Battlegrounds. Korea is a tiny nation, and so builds for export above all, sending 8.5 billion dollars of games abroad in 2024 against 246 million imported. The government says Korea owns 7.2 percent of the world's gaming econonmy, on domestic revenue of 23.85 trillion won. Unexpectedly, that's shrinking. Game usage fell to 50.2 percent in 2025, down 9.7 points in a single year.
Market size2024
~23.9 trillion won
2025 대한민국 게임백서, reported by Digital Today, named tech outlet
Played in past 12 months2025
About 20 million
KOCCA reports a game usage rate of 50.2 percent among people in Korea aged 10 to 69 who played in the previous twelve months.
Rough scale only. Every market counts players differently, and MENA and IN have no figure.
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
Shape
Korea primarily makes and exports games. 2024 exports are 8.503 billion dollars, up 1.3 percent, against imports of 245.6 million dollars. Export destinations are led by China at 29.7 percent, Southeast Asia at 20.6 percent, North America at 19.5 percent and Japan at 8.3 percent.
Games are no longer a majority pastime in Korea. The 2025 game user survey puts the game usage rate at 50.2 percent, down 9.7 percentage points in one year, with a five year annual growth rate of minus 6.8 percent. KOCCA describes the market as reorganising around core users.
KOCCA 2025 게임이용자 실태조사 press release, government agency survey
Korea is turning more PC heavy while shrinking. Among game users in 2025, mobile reaches 89.1 percent but is falling, while PC rises to 58.1 percent and console to 28.6 percent, and daily PC playtime is at its highest level in five years.
KOCCA 2025 게임이용자 실태조사 press release, government agency survey
The industry employs 87,576 people in 2024, up 3.1 percent, with 62 percent in production and distribution rather than retail.
2025 대한민국 게임백서, reported by Digital Today, named tech outlet
Research note
The user survey's platform rates overlap and do not sum. Its 50.2 percent is the share of people aged 10 to 69 who played in the past year; mobile 89.1, PC 58.1 and console 28.6 percent are shares of those users rather than of Koreans, and a person on two platforms is counted in both, so they are not a device split.
KOCCA, 2025 Game User Survey (게임이용자 실태조사), government agency
Research note
KOCCA's two annuals carry different years, so quote the year with the figure. The 2025 White Paper on Korean Games, published in March 2026, reports 2024 revenue and exports; the 2025 Game User Survey, published on 18 December 2025, reports play in the year to its fieldwork. There is no white-paper revenue figure for 2025 yet.
KOCCA press release for the 2025 Game User Survey, 22 December 2025, government agency
Where players talk
SOOP, Chzzk (Naver) and YouTube Live
Live game streaming runs through three platforms: SOOP, formerly AfreecaTV, Naver 치지직 (Chzzk), launched in December 2023 as the Twitch successor, and YouTube Live.
Twitch is dead here, exited Feb 2024
Twitch is dead in Korea, so Twitch data says nothing about Korean streaming. The platform ended its Korean operations on 27 February 2024, about six and a half years after entering, citing network usage fees roughly ten times other countries, a figure Korean network operators dispute.
Research note
Do not look for Korean games podcasts by category on Podbbang. The leading Korean podcast platform lists no games or gaming category in its category browser, confirmed August 2026.
Unverified
Do not assert the scale of the anonymous boards without checking. 디시인사이드 (DC Inside) galleries, 에펨코리아 (FMKorea) and 아카라이브 (Arca.live) are commonly described as major games discussion venues, but their current scale and games activity could not be verified to standard.
Where the data lives
The six places to open first. The full list of 86 is at the bottom of the page.
대한민국 게임백서 (White Paper on Korean Games)
대한민국 게임백서 (White Paper on Korean Games). KOCCA annual gives industry revenue, exports by destination, employment and Korea world share, and the full PDF is free.
게임이용자 실태조사 (Game User Survey)
게임이용자 실태조사 (Game User Survey). KOCCA annual survey of 10,000 people aged 10 to 69 gives game usage rates, platform splits, playtime and spending, the standard free source on who plays in Korea.
GRAC 등급분류 database
GRAC 등급분류 database. The regulator searchable database of every rating decision, including self classified games, lets a researcher confirm any game legal release status, rating and rating history in Korea.
KRAFTON investor relations
KRAFTON investor relations. Quarterly earnings releases and periodic reports give platform level and IP level revenue splits, an example of the disclosure depth available from Korea listed publishers.
글로벌 게임산업 트렌드 (Global Game Industry Trends)
글로벌 게임산업 트렌드 (Global Game Industry Trends). KOCCA free bimonthly briefing covers overseas market, policy and company developments including emerging markets, written for Korean companies going abroad.
The State of Video Gaming (Ball, Epyllion)
The State of Video Gaming, Matthew Ball and Epyllion. A free annual analyst presentation with market sizing, participation and platform charts for most major markets, useful for cross market comparison that no single free source provides. It aggregates many vendors rather than applying one methodology, so treat figures as the analyst assembly they are and cite the underlying source where the deck names one.
People
Communities
Namu Wiki (나무위키)
Korea's de facto encyclopedia of games, streamer, and fandom culture. Unmatched for context and controversy timelines. Crowd-edited and unreliable for facts.
DC Inside (디시인사이드)
Korea's imageboard culture, with gallery boards per game/streamer that reveal fan-community temperature.
Ruliweb (루리웹)
Long-running KR console/gaming community. Offers deals, reactions, and sentiment. (News desk exists but minor.)
FM Korea
Korea's largest male-dominated (남초, namcho) community, grown from a 2008 Football Manager fan site into a general board where gaming, football, internet broadcasting (인방, inbang) and humor posts compete for the trending board (포텐, poten). The fastest read on how a game or streamer lands with young Korean men, with a documented anti-feminist and misogynistic streak a researcher must factor into everything found there.
theqoo
Large female-dominated (여초, yeocho) community centered on Korean entertainment, grown out of a J-pop fan site into the main hub for idol, drama and celebrity discussion, with boards like 케이돌토크 (K-idol Talk) driving most traffic. The place to read how a game, collab or brand moment plays inside K-pop fandom, particularly among adult women.
86 curated sources for South Korea
Research it yourself
These rows
11 of 11 sources
| Name | What it lets you find out | Type | Cost | Markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile Index (IGAWorks) | Korea-specific mobile rankings and usage estimates behind a Korean-language interface. Covers One Store (KR third-party store), which global vendors often miss. Methodology differs from Sensor Tower, so don't mix numbers across vendors | Analytics platform | Freemium | |
| Playboard | YouTube channel rankings with strong Korea coverage and Super Chat leaderboards. Provides estimates, not platform-reported data | Analytics platform | Freemium | |
| 소프트콘 뷰어십 SOFTC.ONE Viewership (Sopeuteukon Vieoship) | Rankings and viewership metrics across Chzzk, SOOP, YouTube Live, and Twitch: who's big in Korea right now. Independent project, KO interface only | Creator tracking | Free | |
| vling (블링) | Korean YouTube channel analytics and influencer-value data built for advertisers. YouTube only, no Chzzk/SOOP, ad-sales orientation | Creator tracking | Freemium | |
| SANDBOX Network (샌드박스네트워크, Saendeubakseu Neteuwokeu) | Roster of ~265 creator teams across gaming/kids/entertainment who are professionally managed in KR. Private company that ranks its own talent | Creator tracking | Free | |
| DIA TV (CJ ENM) (다이아티비, Daia Tibi) | Korea's other flagship MCN. CJ ENM is listed (KOSDAQ 035760), so the parent's disclosures give partial primary data. The roster is its own talent | Creator tracking | Free | |
| University Tomorrow 20s Lab | Quantitative youth/Gen Z research. Strong for child/young-adult segmentation. | Adjacent research body | Free | |
| Nexon IR | Founded in Korea but listed in Tokyo, offers per-title and per-region detail and the economics of live-ops | Corporate IR | Free | |
| Krafton IR | PUBG economics and India exposure | Corporate IR | Free | |
| NCSoft IR | Lineage economics, which is important for the ongoing MMO monetization story (i.e., people getting tired of being bilked by games show up in the numbers first here) | Corporate IR | Free | |
| Netmarble / Kakao Games IR | KR mobile publishing economics | Corporate IR | Free |