Devsisters held a shareholder meeting and directly laid out its new game release roadmap, profitability improvement measures and shareholder return policy. It is preparing a late-July global release of its new title "CookieRun: Crumble" while pursuing cost-cutting steps including a hiring freeze, consolidation of subsidiaries and unpaid executives to lay the groundwork for improved profitability in the second half.

On June 15, industry sources said Devsisters held the shareholder meeting on June 12, hosted by Chief Financial Officer Seong-taek Lim (임성택). The meeting lasted about 2 hours and 30 minutes. The company later posted key questions and answers on its website.

The meeting came as pressure from a coalition of minority shareholders grows. As of that day, Devsisters shares were down 64.9 percent from their January peak, and the ownership stake of shareholders gathered through the minority shareholder platform ACT stood at 7.36 percent. Under commercial law, securing at least 3 percent of voting shares allows shareholders to request an extraordinary general meeting and exercise shareholder proposal rights, and the coalition had signalled it would send a certified letter and seek to appoint an auditor through an extraordinary meeting. The company previously announced a management overhaul plan under which Chief Executive Gil-hyun Jo (조길현) and co-chairmen of the board Ji-hoon Lee (이지훈) and Jong-heun Kim (김종흔) would forgo their entire salaries until management stability is secured.

◆ New title CookieRun: Crumble to launch globally in late July; China licence for Tower of Adventures targeted for third quarter

The most imminent new release is "CookieRun: Crumble". The company will start pre-registrations on June 29 and is conducting final enhancement work with a goal of a formal global launch in late July. For external promotion, it will roll out an official PV video release and a global landing campaign starting from a CookieRun 17th anniversary page timed with the meeting. Its business model adds advertising and ad removal, as well as monthly subscription revenue sources such as a season pass and special membership, to a core currency model centred on cookies and pets. As differentiators, it highlighted "CookieTalk" integrated with in-game play, cinematic cutscenes and a deck-building combat meta aimed at both light and core users.

"CookieRun: Tower of Adventures", which is being prepared for release in China, set as its key goal completing issuance of a licence within the third quarter this year. The licence schedule may vary depending on reviews by local authorities, and the company is managing risks through a partnership with a local publisher. The core content is a "tower defence" mode, and it plans to introduce PvP content in stages after initial traffic stabilisation at launch. It presented localisation strategies including a WeChat and QQ-linked social party system, development of original cookies based on a traditional Chinese mask-play concept, dedicated events and skins centred on Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and running offline pop-up stores.

It is also developing the TCG "CookieRun Card Collection" in collaboration with the development team at Roblox headquarters, and "CookieRun AR", which uses AR technology to connect everyday spaces with the CookieRun universe. Additional new titles to be unveiled after 2026 will be light casual genres reflecting the rise of short-form content and a trend of declining average user session times. The company plans to test the market first with standalone builds and then fold them into its formal lineup after checking retention and revenue indicators.

For the live service title "CookieRun: Kingdom", it is seeking a rebound by fully rolling out the Act 2 story, "Arcana of Truth and Lies". It will shift from large quarterly updates to story updates on a "once every 2 weeks" cycle, and sequentially introduce new content including an Arena Champions League, a revamp of the guild system and "Infinite Labyrinth". On optimisation issues that occurred during the Act 2 update process, it explained that system load temporarily increased amid large-scale content expansion. It said it is carrying out streamlining work by committing companywide technical resources and that key indicators are showing signs of recovery.

The non-game business "CookieRun: Braverse Card Game" has become the key cash cow in the non-game segment, generating annual revenue of more than 10 billion won. It is currently available at about 1,000 specialist card shops in the United States, and plans to switch to a multi-distributor system as its exclusive distribution contract expires at the end of this year and expand into Europe and South America. With a lean operating team and a low-cost structure, it is recording a contribution margin of more than about half.

◆ Hiring freeze, subsidiary consolidation, unpaid executives: "Laying groundwork for second-half operating profit rebound"

To improve profitability, the company presented four pillars: optimising marketing ROI, restructuring human resources, productivity innovation through AI adoption, and management sharing the pain. In the first quarter, marketing spending focused about 70 percent of total resources on the large-scale fifth anniversary update for "CookieRun: Kingdom". It has frozen hiring across the company and is consolidating organisations and subsidiaries to eliminate duplicated resources. It defined the executives' pledge to forgo their entire salaries until management stability is secured as a step to raise corporate governance transparency and build the underlying strength for an operating profit rebound in the second half.

On shareholder returns, it said it will maintain a profit-linked policy of implementing shareholder returns up to a limit of 10 percent of operating profit when consolidated operating profit exceeds 20 billion won. In fiscal 2024, it achieved consolidated operating profit of 27.2 billion won and used those funds to retire treasury shares it already held to raise per-share value. It plans to use remaining treasury shares for funding new project development, securing key IP and global M&A, and as compensation tools for key personnel, including stock options and RSUs. With a stake meeting the requirements to call an extraordinary general meeting now gathered by the minority shareholder coalition, whether Devsisters can achieve both tasks of new game success and cost cuts is expected to be key to restoring shareholder trust.