Share of gamers South Korea 2015-2023

According to a survey conducted in South Korea in 2023, around 63 percent of South Koreans played games that year. This represents a decrease from the previous year. The share of Koreans playing games peaked in 2015 at 74.5 percent.

Popularity of mobile games in South Korea

A 2023 survey found that about 53 percent of Koreans played mobile games, far ahead of all other gaming platforms, including PC gaming. Access to mobile games is made significantly easier by South Korea’s high smartphone ownership rate. In 2021, consumers within the country spent around 5.8 billion U.S. dollars on mobile games. The largest share of mobile gaming expenditure was spent on massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), although puzzle games were the most popular mobile game genre in terms of preference.

South Korea as a hotbed of e-sports

South Korea has established itself as a major international player in the e-sports industry. Despite the general popularity of mobile games over other platforms, PC games dominate the domestic professional e-sports scene. League of Legends (LoL) and Hearthstone were the most relevant e-sports games in 2022, with these two titles holding the highest number of domestic e-sports tournaments. LoL was among the games with the largest number of professional e-sports players.