The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) said on Tuesday they published the 2025 Korea Game White Paper, which summarises the state of the domestic and global game industry in 2024.

The white paper comprehensively covers performance including sales and exports in the domestic game industry.

The report put 2024 domestic game industry sales at 23.8515 trillion won, up 3.9 percent from a year earlier. Exports totalled $8.53046 billion, up 1.3 percent, it said.

The number of people working in the domestic game industry rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier to 87,576. Of those, 54,285 people, or 62.0 percent, worked in game production and publishing, while 33,291, or 38.0 percent, worked in distribution, it said, indicating the industry structure remained centred on production and publishing.

By segment, sales were 14.071 trillion won for mobile games, 6.0094 trillion won for PC games, 1.1836 trillion won for console games and 275.9 billion won for arcade games.

By segment, growth was 4.8 percent for console games, 3.4 percent for mobile games and 2.0 percent for PC games, while arcade games fell 3.2 percent. The number of arcade game centres rose slightly, up 2.9 percent. Sales at PC bangs rose 12.8 percent from a year earlier, but the number of businesses fell.

The global games market in 2024 is estimated at $220.071 billion, up 0.7 percent from a year earlier. South Korea's share of the global game market was 7.2 percent, maintaining fourth place after China, the United States and Japan.

By major market, the export share was China at 29.7 percent, Southeast Asia at 20.6 percent, North America at 19.5 percent and Japan at 8.3 percent. Compared with a year earlier, the export share expanded in North America by 4.7 percentage points and in China by 4.2 percentage points. Imports fell 3.2 percent to $245.574 million, it said.

Yoo Hyun-seok (유현석), acting head of KOCCA, said the white paper would serve as a milestone in diagnosing the current state of the domestic game industry and designing future strategies. He said KOCCA would not spare data-based support so that K-game can secure competitiveness in the global market.