Source: [https://sports.news.naver.com/news.nhn?oid=236&aid=0000239592](https://sports.news.naver.com/news.nhn?oid=236&aid=0000239592)
\- It has been 3 years since you joined Krafton. What is something satisfactory or new that you felt during the past 3 years?
The biggest difference since joining Krafton is that while I stil think of myself as a content creator and producer, I am trying to have a more business-like mind. Since this is a business at a global scale, those things are sometimes challenging, but also fun, then also stressful. The best and worst part of working at Krafton is that Krafton is attempting various genres. Apart from games, Krafton is the only place where you can challenge yourself in publishing, deep-learning, metaverse, esports etc and that is a pro that I am grateful of. Looking back at the past 3 years, there was a lot of trial-and-error, but in that time we tried to build trust with esports fans and are thinking that the results are slowly showing up.
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\- What was the keyword that represented this year’s PUBG esports and why?
On the last day of PGC 2022, we talked about 3 things that will the direction of PUBG esports in 2023. The first was expanding global events, second is coexisting with orgs, represented by the global partner team program, the third is constructing an infrastructure for the fans. At the end of 2023 now, if I were to change these into keywords, it would be promise and coexistence.
We invested a lot of resources into PUBG esports and tried out various things but still did not grow as much as we hoped. One of the reasons is that despite those various experiments, we did not stick by one way. We experimented too much and the PUBG esports community said that we seem to mean it well but too much is changing too often, and that is exhausting. Last year, we revived PNC and this year, we revived PGS, which we planned but couldn’t do due to COVID. As such, we value our promises to the fans and community highly and will continue with this mindset.
Secondly, for the first time, we chose 8 GPTs this year, making team-branded skins, sharing revenue and giving PGS seeds to grow together with best teams in the world and I think the result was successful. The team skin sales are pretty okay and the GPT teams won all the main global events (this interview was before the end of PGC). 17 won PGS1, SQ won PGS2 and 6 GPTs are at the Grand Finals of PGC 2023. Therefore, we think that this system has successfully settled in.
We already announced this but we will increase the GPT number to 10 teams and gradually increase the scale of this program. We are planning to pursue a stable model so that the teams that stayed with us during the previous open system would not feel deprived.
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\- One of the biggest topics of PUBG esports this year was the synchronization of esports and ranked. Various new features and new maps were integrated and do you think these changes worked well as intended?
Actually, this is something Krafton is invested in and even I did not understand why esports and ranked were different. When making a game, there is a lot of thought and time put into it, and I believe it is esports pro players who can display the result of those thoughts and intentions naturally, quickly and densely. As you said, we achieved complete synchronization between esports and ranked and internally, we are very satisfied with the outcome. Pro players are utilizing new features like emergency pickups, foldable shields much better than regular users. For example, SQ TGLTN’s amazing mortar uses and various weapon loadouts such as panzerfausts are making the viewing experience more fun. I think this is a path we must take in order to get new talents coming in. Soon, PUBG’s new map Rondo will be revealed and, it’s not decided yet, but Rondo will be actively promoted through ranked and esports and we aim to show the real fun of Rondo through the plays of professional esports.
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\- While watching this event in person, I feel like the scale has decreased than before but is more practical and there was more focus into fan engagement. What is the reason for such change?
Not just Krafton, but esports all around the world is at a time of change at 2023. The bubble is disappearing and esports as a whole started contemplating about it, so this is a natural flow. “Is a visually stunning stage everything?”, “Do we really need crowds?” were discussed and while I can’t say these were discussed voluntarily, I think we found our solutions due to the hard times. I would like to state that this process was started for a sustainable esports. We are putting our efforts into, of course, providing the best environment for the players, but also trying to provide them contact with fans. Unlike before, we are hosting Fan Meet-up events everyday. Also since PNC 2023, the dev leaders of PUBG Studio are coming on-site to personally meet the players and get their feedback and in this process, the players are feeling more proud and the devs are satisfied with the feedback. Of course esports events should have some dazzle as well, but it should be a place where we can meet the fans more closely and act as a marketing tool. I believe esports events should act as an all-around fan festival, so rather than being overly strict and serious, I aim to have a more casual and fun environment for fans. We are also trying to appropriately balance the integrity of the competition as well.
\-Regarding the new maps, some players thing the status quo is good and even says that the maps should be reduced to three and are concerned about adding new maps to the rotation. How are you discussing with the players regarding the new maps?
In this event, there are 6 games per day, while it was 5 last year. Considering the genre of this game, we need at least a certain number of matches, but if it is 15 games in the Finals, the luck factor is too much, 18 matches is marginal, and 24 matches can be boring. By having 6 matches per day, we are aiming for efficiency, including cost, and when having 5 matches per day, 4 maps is the limit. However, we are not going to fix the map rotation and because new maps will keep coming out, we plan to go along with ranked rotation. It’s not decided yet, but next year, the first and second half will have different map rotations and it might change every event. The basic map Erangel will not change but it could be Rondo instead of Taego or Vikendi. Pro players tend to the most conservative but once a situation is given, I believe they will be the fastest to adapt. We are going to listen to the players closely but also aim for change. Pro players can speak from the perspective of pro players, but they are basically have the most love for our game and esports so I think they always have good opinions. While we will always hear what they have to say, I also think that simply doing everything as they say does not benefit the players too.
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\- Do you have plans to build Krafton’s own esports production?
We are preparing a space in our new HQ in Seongsu as an esports arena. It’s won’t be small and on top of it being an arena, it will also act as a culture complex and the basic design is ready. We are also thinking about other directions such as our in-house production, but I believe it is best to do what is most efficient at the moment. We are getting a lot of investments from third-party partners and I think it is best to make the most use out of those partnerships. We are going to consider various aspects to decide the most efficient path.
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\- From public disclosure, it was revealed that the esports budget was cut. Fans are also disappointment of that, so what does Krafton think of the esports?
The absolute budget is smaller so it is definitely not the same environment as before, but this is a matter of direction. In the past when PUBG esports first started, one of the many mistakes was overaggressively expanding to the global stage and trying hard to make the league successful in every way. The game itself was such a global phenomenon so we were in a position to make those attempts but it was not easy to sustain it. We are now in the process of rebalancing. Regarding regional esports events, we are avoiding one-time events as much as possible. We believe the direction is to give pro players an environment that makes their hearts beat and it is important to give them a larger goal to achieve, and the answer is to open more global events. In that sense, I still think there is not enough opportunities where a player can lift up a trophy and think “Ah, I’m glad I played this game”, and I think regionals should be the primer for that. Regional events have their meanings as well, but in more competitive regions, it’s hard to imagine that players are aiming only for the regional events, so it is important to provide steps towards a higher place.
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\- If there are more global events, does that mean the regional events will decrease?
We aim to maintain, not to shrink them. When doing global events, an easy trap one can fall into is that without budget increase, more globals means less regionals. Our dilemma is that the sum of each region’s viewership is quite large and usually, the viewership of global events should be more than this number, but it is not. Maybe it is because the fandom is split into teams, but considering the numbers we get in the regionals, the global numbers should be larger but that’s not the case. If we don’t have the capacity to run regional leagues, no matter how many global events we host, the storytelling won’t be there because the breaks are too long. The second half is not so bad, but the first half of the year doesn’t have a lot of events. I think it is best to address this problem even if we have to overdo ourselves and this is one of the key points for next year.
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\-PUBG esports has many teams playing at the same time and the random aspect makes the viewer’s experience difficult. So, maybe decreasing the number of teams and only having the strongest teams can be more fun to watch. Have you thought about those changes?
The core of our game is survival, which basically means elimination and I talked about this internally. For example, we thought about 18 matches during 3 days, and in the last day from match 12, the two bottom teams will be removed each match. We also thought about double-up chances where if a team thinks they can win the match based on the circle, they have an opportunity to get double points, and we also considered a betting-based streaming event, which would entail age-restriction problems though.
For intuitive observing, we made additional efforts into things like marking viewing points or drop zones through this tournament, but it’s true that it is hard to focus. I actually want to try new things in event competitions. The first event I was in charge of since joining Krafton was PGI.S 2021, which took place in Incheon during COVID, and I even thought about sending eliminated teams straight back to the Incheon airport and live streaming their departure through the player booth LED screen.
However, our esports has randomness so rather than striving for fairness, it seems to be closer to what traditional sports seek. For example, all players wear the same skins to prevent teaming, but while this is basically for fairness, we internally keep discussing about better ways. I think it is a time where we start to think of about showing impact and individuality.
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\- Lastly, what is the goal for next year? And a message to fans.
I think we achieved, not everything, but somewhat what we set out to do. We firstly achieved the goal of coexisting with GPTs and I believe the teams’ trust towards us has definitely improved. So there was some progress in the basics. In terms of viewership, it is not very satisfactory, but we achieved our minimum goal. However, there still a matter of how to add impact, and I don’t think this can be done overnight. Yesterday, our PGC viewership reached new records. In that sense, I hope our sincerity reaches everyone. Next year, we will try to be more data-driven and think harder of how to give more satisfaction and be better as a content. The journey so far was not for drastic change but, although not easy, to get a system in place. Next year’s esports might not be full of roses and things might be difficult, but we are trying to keep our promise as much as we can and trying to expand within the given direction. I hope the fans will feel our sincerity.