It’s hard to ignore the rise of the Chinese gaming industry these days, thanks to hits like Genshin Impact and Black Myth Wukong. They didn’t just achieve global success; they also completely changed expectations for scale, polish, and production speed across the industry. And it seems the Korean gaming industry is looking for ways to keep up. CEO of Shift Up, the studio behind Stellar Blade, argued that in this case, AI is no longer optional. It is now a basic requirement for studios trying to compete against China’s sheer development scale.
“Around 80% of our company’s revenue comes from overseas, and when we go abroad, the first competitors we encounter are Chinese games,” said CEO Kim Hyung-tae during a national economic briefing, via Gamemeca.com translated using Google Translate. “We invest around 150 people into a single game, but China can deploy between 1,000 and 2,000 people. We lack the capacity to compete in terms of content completeness or sheer volume.”
For that reason, Kim believes that AI expertise is what’s needed to address this gap. Still, he rejected the idea that wider AI adoption will lead to mass job losses. Instead, he described AI as a way for smaller teams to punch above their weight in an industry dominated by massive studios.
“Only when all [Korean human resources] are proficient in AI — where one person should do the work of 100 — can we barely compete with industries like China or the United States that rely on massive human resources.”
The Stellar Blade developer also stressed that AI needs to be accessible. That can be done by supporting local startups that bundle AI tools into easy-to-use platforms, similar to Pixfield.
“Competing with companies like Google or Amazon using AI is not realistically easy. That’s why we need to support startups that build platforms using APIs, along with a social system that facilitates easy access,” explained Kim.
It seems the Korean government agrees — and actually is acting on it. Earlier this week, the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) announced a new generative AI program called the ‘AI Specialized Content Academy.’ Backed by a 7.9 billion won (around $5.4 million) budget, it aims to train more than 1,000 AI-skilled professionals in 2026, both entry-level and experienced industry workers.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwi-young also added that the government will fund AI subscriptions for small and mid-sized studios using that budget starting this year.
