Major South Korean game companies are strengthening their publishing businesses by finding and servicing games made by outside developers alongside in-house development. The move aims to widen sources of new titles as development of big-budget games stretches out and to reduce reliance on a handful of internal projects. NCSoft, Nexon, Krafton and Neowiz are expanding lineups through external titles and IP, seeking to diversify genres and shorten release gaps while sharing roles with specialist studios.

Nexon said on March 16 it has wrapped up its first offline event in South Korea for fantasy world RPG Azur Promilia, developed by Manju Games, and has begun recruiting participants for a domestic closed beta test. The game joined the ComicWorld subculture event in Ilsan on March 14-15 as the first game company to serve as main sponsor, drawing about 70,000 visitors over two days.