Recently, while the number of employees in their 20s and 30s in the gaming industry is decreasing, the number of employees in their 40s and 50s is increasing. Due to the slump in the gaming industry, the hiring of new employees has decreased, leading to an aging workforce.
Gaming companies are stating their position to secure new intellectual property (IP), but they are only releasing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) that guarantee revenue. There are concerns that if the 10 to 20-year-old generation, which will be the main consumer group of the future gaming industry, turns away from domestic games, the competitiveness of our gaming industry may decline.
According to the '2024 survey on the labor environment of gaming industry workers' published on Dec. 2 by the Korea Creative Content Agency, the number of young employees (under 34 years old) in domestic gaming companies has decreased: ▲ 5,3814 in 2020 ▲ 50,765 in 2021 ▲ 45,860 in 2022. In particular, the number of employees in their 20s decreased by 30.6% in 2022, falling to 24,822 from 35,787 in 2020.
In contrast, the number of employees in their 40s and 50s is increasing. The number of employees in these age groups grew from 14,360 in 2020 to 15,174 in 2021 and 18,694 in 2022. Notably, the number of employees aged 50 and above rose by about 61.5% to 4,612 in 2022, up from 2,854 in 2020.
The gaming industry cites the recent decline in hiring new employees as a cause of the ongoing slump in the domestic gaming industry. Gaming companies are focusing on securing growth momentum through new game lineups, but they are approaching the hiring of new talent needed for new game development conservatively. To reduce expenses, they prefer hiring experienced professionals who can be immediately involved in development projects. In some major gaming companies, it is understood that first-generation founders who joined during the IT boom of the 1990s and 2000s are still handling development tasks.
The aging of gamers is also one of the reasons for the reluctance to hire new employees. According to the '2024 survey on gaming user demographics' published by the Korea Creative Content Agency, 60.7% of those in their 40s and 44.6% of those in their 50s reported that they play games. The number of gamers in their 60s also reached 31.1%. Considering that the usage rate of games among those in their 40s was 50.8% in the 2016 survey, there is a trend of increasing age among gamers.
Given the nature of the gaming industry, a creative and challenging culture is important, but the domestic gaming industry is regressing as the aging phenomenon deepens. While an aging workforce may lead to an accelerated game development schedule due to high skill levels, it may also hinder innovation. In fact, domestic gaming companies are recycling popular IP games that guarantee revenue instead of discovering new IPs. Since MMORPGs, led by titles like 'Lineage' and 'Kingdom of the Wind,' attract a major user base in their 40s and 50s, concerns have been raised that the domestic gaming market is overly biased toward the MMORPG genre. This could lead to a slowdown in the growth of the domestic gaming industry and a deterioration of global competitiveness.
Another issue is that the 10 to 20-year-old users, who will become the main consumer group of the gaming industry in the future, do not enjoy domestic games. According to the '2024 monthly active users (MAU) of game apps by age group' published by Mobile Index, among the top 10 game apps most used by users under 10 years old, there was only one domestic game. The protagonist is 'Zombie High School,' a 2D action game by Awesome Peace, which ranked third. Among the top 10 most popular mobile game apps for users in their 20s, the only domestic game that made the list was 'Luckysim' by 111 Percent, which ranked 10th.
A gaming industry official noted, "Both employees and users are aging, and the companies are facing many internal concerns." He added, "In gaming, success is the most important factor, and as companies tend to produce only games with guaranteed revenue, there is a tendency to hire primarily experienced professionals." He continued, "To target the younger demographic, it is essential to reflect the latest trends and secure young developers who can implement them."