23 Daily — According to gamelook.com.cn, the South Korean gaming market continues to show strong growth momentum in 2026, with mobile games' in-app purchase revenue reaching 5 billion USD. This highlights breakthroughs in user value and refined operations, driving the market into a new stage. Facing intense domestic competition, Korean gaming companies are actively expanding to overseas markets to achieve growth both in revenue and user base.

Intensified domestic competition drives companies to explore overseas markets

Increasing competition within the South Korean gaming industry forces companies to seek new growth avenues. The overseas market, with its vast user base and diverse demands, has become a crucial target for Korean game firms. While maintaining their core products' strengths in the domestic market, many companies place greater emphasis on localization strategies and partnerships abroad to enhance competitiveness.

New operational model combining classic IP lightening and ad-in-app purchase integration

Korean gaming companies leverage classic intellectual property (IP) through lightweight design to lower entry barriers for new users, while integrating advertising and in-app purchases as dual revenue streams. This diversified monetization approach ensures rich and deep game content, improves user retention and payment conversion rates, and successfully achieves simultaneous growth in both revenue and user numbers.

Editor's take: New market strategies in South Korea offer opportunities for startups

The South Korean gaming industry showcases mature and diversified market strategies driven by refined operations and enhanced user value. For startups, this provides two key insights: first, how to leverage classic IP by lightweight reinterpretation to create products tailored to diverse user needs; second, to explore optimal combinations of advertising and in-app purchase revenue models. New ventures can adopt these strategies and practically test user acceptance and monetization models in localized operations or cross-border expansion, iterating their approaches based on data analytics and user feedback to improve competitiveness.