[Digital Today reporter Ho-jeong Lee] Krafton’s flagship game 'PUBG: Battlegrounds' is moving to expand beyond the boundaries of a single genre, battle royale. In its ninth year since release, it recorded its highest quarterly revenue in the first quarter on the back of more advanced collaborations. It is also trying to shift into a content platform through experiments with new modes such as 'XenoPoint'. This change is being assessed as showing some effect through user metrics and revenue.

According to industry officials on May 12, Krafton’s first-quarter PUBG IP franchise revenue rose 24 percent from a year earlier and topped 1 trillion won for the first time on a quarterly basis. CFO Dong-geun Bae (배동근) said time spent, the number of paying users and total users all increased across core services. He explained that there were no incentives received from partners and that the profit and loss were entirely organic and recurring.

◆Resales and scarcity collaborations...Monetisation changed in the first quarter

The key driver of first-quarter revenue growth was more advanced collaborations. On PC, the resale of Aston Martin vehicles for the ninth anniversary in March produced results. The company brought back vehicle items first sold in 2023, and recorded a large increase in revenue compared with the initial sale. It effectively confirmed that content that has already been proven can create new demand even over time.

Rereleasing popular content on a regular cycle becomes a core revenue mechanism for long-running games. It allows repeated monetisation of existing assets without additional development costs.

On mobile, the share of collaborations with highly scarce IP increased. Apollo Automobil, which drove mobile revenue in the first quarter, is a German low-volume hypercar brand unfamiliar to the public.

Bae explained that it drew demand from high-spending users with scarce content rather than mainstream brand awareness.

If mainstream IP focuses on attracting new users, highly scarce IP stimulates spending by existing high-spending users. It is interpreted as a strategy that separates user expansion from strengthening monetisation in its design.

◆What XenoPoint confirmed...space beyond battle royale adds net traffic

Separately from the monetisation strategy that led first-quarter results, execution of the platform shift is accelerating in the second quarter. The first attempt is the new mode 'XenoPoint', released on April 8. In a PUBG development roadmap released in March, Krafton specified XenoPoint as part of a strategy to expand Battlegrounds into a gameplay platform offering a range of shooting experiences.

XenoPoint is a cooperative PvE roguelite mode in which team members eliminate alien threats together. Unlike battle royale, where players fight each other, it features random stages and a progression system to take on alien enemies and bosses in the game.

The reason the mode is drawing attention lies in the results. After its release, the average daily peak concurrent users rose to 1 million from 800,000, increasing net traffic without cannibalising existing battle royale users.

Bae said more than one-third of battle royale users played XenoPoint, and that it recorded the highest concurrent users ever for an arcade mode.

Krafton was trying to confirm one thing in these figures. It wanted to see whether a new mode could create additional traffic without undermining the existing user base. XenoPoint more clearly confirmed that possibility.

CEO Chang-han Kim (김창한) said PvE modes maximise their effect when they are operated for a certain period and then rereleased in an upgraded version, adding that a seasonal approach is suitable. He added that the company is also preparing a separate mode that can be operated on an ongoing basis. On May 13, a cooperative heist mode 'PAYDAY', co-developed with Starbreeze, which developed the PAYDAY IP, will be released for a limited time. It amounts to continued mode expansion using external IP in a play style different from battle royale, centred on stealth and role division.

The mid-to-long-term goal is to build a UGC ecosystem. If a structure is established in which users create and distribute content themselves, content can increase within the platform without Krafton developing it directly. Through its roadmap, Krafton has already signalled plans to expand creation tools and devices and to establish a dedicated space for UGC. Attention is on whether the first stage of building the ecosystem will become visible within this year. The challenge is speed. For users to actually begin creating, the completeness of the production environment and a revenue-sharing structure must be in place together.

Bae said growth in the PUBG IP franchise will continue as many pieces of content are scheduled in the second quarter to support growth.

Some securities firms believe that if UGC expansion gains traction in the second half, Battlegrounds could shift beyond battle royale into a shooting-based platform. They expect UGC activation to be a key variable for Battlegrounds’ platformisation to move beyond the experimental phase into a real ecosystem.