‘Wang-sa-nam’ was outpaced···Why the ‘K-game’ Crimson Desert connected with the world - 경향신문

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Gameplay of the open-world action-adventure game ‘Crimson Desert’ developed by Pearl Abyss. Courtesy of Pearl Abyss

Priced at 80,000 KRW and taking more than 50 hours to reach the ending, a piece of K-content is a global hit. It is the game ‘Crimson Desert’. It reached the 4 million mark in just 12 days, a milestone that the film <The Man Who Lives with the King> took 15 days to attain.

The success of Crimson Desert is all the more meaningful because it landed squarely in the genres mainstream in North America·Europe. As its influence grows, however, calls are emerging for a cautious approach alongside rising expectations. Today, Dot-Line-Plane takes stock of the current state of K-games through Crimson Desert.

Crimson Desert, developed by the Korean game studio Pearl Abyss, is a game where you freely adventure through a medieval fantasy-style virtual world. You can follow the storyline and interact with a variety of in-game characters, or even carve out a path entirely your own. It makes the most of the ‘open-world game’ format, which gives players wide freedom to realize their imagination.

Thanks to that, by the 1st12 days after release4 million copies (about 320 billion KRW) had been sold on Steam, the global game platform. It is the fastest pace ever for a Korean game. Some even project that sales could surpass 10 million units in the first quarter of next year.

The response is particularly hot in the West. English-language reviews account for more than half of all user feedback, and the game is maintaining a “Very Positive” rating.

Crimson Desert’s success is positive in that it shows potential in consoles (home game consoles) and open-worldareas once considered barren ground for K-games. Console games are played by connecting a dedicated console to a TV and the like. In North America·Europe, console games are mainstream, whereas in Korea the market is overwhelmingly mobile·PC (about 85%). With a solid domestic market, Korean game companies had little reason to make console games.

Share by segment in the Korean game market from the 2025 Korea Game White Paper. Captured from the Korea Creative Content Agency

Around 2020, however, the domestic market began to change. Internally, repeated controversy over the gambling-like nature of ‘gacha’ (probability-based item draws) stemming from information asymmetry led users to feel fatigued. Externally, the so-called ban on the Korean Wave made it harder to enter China, the market on which most exports had depended. In fact, growth in the domestic game market has slowed since 2021.

In response, game companies turned their eyes to the world where consoles are mainstream. The global console market is large, at about 8.2 trillion KRW (as of 2024), signaling big potential. Representative success stories include ‘Lies of P’ (Neowiz), released in 2023 and already past 4 million units in cumulative global sales, and the ocean adventure game ‘Dave the Diver’ (Nexon).

Korean studios’ high level of technical prowess and rapid optimization also shone in developing and operating open-world titles. This underpinned Crimson Desert’s ability to overcome criticisms about clunky controls and a thin narrative. The UK tech outlet TechRadar praised its “stylish, excellent combat system, outstanding open world, and dazzling visuals,” adding that it was impressed by “how swiftly Pearl Abyss’s developers and staff respond to requests and feedback.”

The success of K-games matters industrially as well. Games account for about 60 to 70% of Korea’s content industry exportslarger than K-pop, broadcasting, film, and animation combined. President Lee Jae Myung also held a ‘K-game on-site roundtable’ last October, saying, “For a country like the Republic of Korea that lacks natural resources and lives on exports, game exports seem like ‘real exports’,” and naming games as one of the key drivers of the ‘2026 Economic Growth Strategy’.

On the morning of October 15 last year, before the K-game on-site roundtable at PUBG Seongsu, a multipurpose cultural space in Seongdong District, Seoul, President Lee Jae Myung poses holding a helmet in front of a Krafton character. Kim Chang-gil, Reporter

Rep. Kim Sung-hoe, who chairs the Democratic Party’s Special Committee on Games, told Dot-Line-Plane by phone, “In open worlds, how well you build the world determines success or failure, and Crimson Desert seems to have done that well,” stressing, “You have to be able to express yourself freely to build a world of your own. That is Korea’s strength.” He added, “Games that are competitive globally should be fostered and supported strategically by the state,” saying he would refine support systems through future legal revisions.

Some voices of concern are also being raised. As content, games can abet illegality or hate. The higher the degree of freedom in open-world games, the harder it is to avoid controversy. Indeed, some conservative groups last year even held a ‘Yoon Again’ rally in the open-world platform ‘Roblox’. In a 2024 interview, Kim Min-seong, presient of the Korea Game Consumers Association, warned that “some companies are agreeing with claims from male-dominated online communities,” cautioning that game companies could become biased toward a particular stance during operations.

The so-called ‘crunch mode’working at intense levels ahead of launches and the likeis also a chronic problem. According to last year’s ‘Survey on the Working Environment of Game Workers’ report, official working hours for industry workers fell, but unofficial labor outside the office increased; they worked an average of over 9 hours a week outside the office. The rate of crunch-mode experience also rose to 35.5%, higher than in 2024.

In an age awash with ‘short-form’ video, the emergence of content that compels investment of dozens of hours is anything but ordinary. Previous successful K-content freely showcased Korean culture while not losing the universal sensibility that resonates globally. That was likely thanks to releasing work built on a foundation free from hate and labor-rights issues. Can a K-game that meets those conditions emerge? It bears watching.

“Even when you look at just one thing, look at it in three dimensions” is the slogan of Kyunghyang Shinmun’s newsletter <Dot-Line-Plane>. We analyze issues worth readers’ consideration as a dot (facts), a line (contexts), and a plane (perspectives) to present them in a multidimensional way. Build your ‘muscles of thought’ by spending 10 minutes each weekday (MonFri) at 7 a.m. reading <Dot-Line-Plane>.