Aju Press - Asia News Hub

Journalist

Kim Dong-young김동영

ReporterSamsung Biologics, CJ CheilJedang, LG Chem, Celltrion, Naver, Krafton, Nexon, Hyundai Mobis etc. & energy, game, food, bio, petrochemical, AI

Kim Dong-young is a bilingual journalist at AJU Press (AJP), covering Korean tech, energy, and bio/pharma.
He reports from the field at events like CES and APEC, runs AJP's YouTube channels,
and is pursuing a master's at Sogang's MOT program. "I try everything in this AI era that can improve yet preserve the facts. Journalism still serves as my core."

Latest by Kim Dong-young

Blizzard rules out Korea-only balance patches for Overwatch BUSAN, August 23 (AJP) - Blizzard Entertainment will keep balancing Overwatch as a single global game rather than tailoring patches to Korea even under its new Nexon partnership, its game director said, even as Korean players keep pulling the shooter's meta in their own direction. "We typically don't try to balance the game differently per region," Aaron Keller said at a press conference at BEXCO, on the second and final day of Overwatch Day, the fan festival staged by Nexon. Regional data, platform data and community sentiment all feed the process, Keller said, with the team meeting multiple times a week to weigh them. "One of the regions that we always specifically do a deeper dive on is Korea, because there are differences in the way Koreans play," he said. "Some of the heroes are more popular in Korea than they are in the rest of the world, and some of the heroes even have different win rates in Korea than they do in the rest of the world." Korean habits have redrawn the global game before, most famously with GOATS, the Korean-born composition that dominated for about a year and prodded Blizzard into introducing role queue. Keller put the gap down to temperament. "In Korea specifically, there's a very competitive mindset for playing Overwatch, and a lot of players take getting better and practicing at the game very seriously," he said. Players elsewhere, he said, do not chase the metas and trends "in the same way that some of the Korean players do." Nexon took over Overwatch's Korean PC service on Aug. 12, the first time a domestic publisher has run the community, a day after D.Mon joined the roster as its 53rd hero. Walter Kong, Blizzard's senior vice president and head of development for live games and mobile, said the groundwork was laid as far back as 2022, as Overwatch settled into its live-service era. "Korea really was an opportunity we were very excited about, given the way that Korean players had supported Overwatch very strongly and passionately," Kong said, describing a wide-open strategy review that eventually narrowed to partnership. Nexon scored high against Blizzard's checklist, he said, citing live-service operating experience, genre expertise and familiarity with the market and its players. The switch has not been frictionless, with players who link their Battle.net accounts to Nexon finding it harder to queue with friends overseas, a trade-off raised repeatedly at the session. "When we started this, we looked very closely and thought a lot about how that change would affect people," Kong said, adding that match quality had held up and that Blizzard would continue to monitor it. Ben Bell, executive producer and senior vice president for Overwatch, cast the deal as a bid for proximity. "The whole goal of this partnership is to get closer to our fans," he said. Nexon's reach among Korean PC players, Bell said, gives Blizzard "an opportunity to listen more closely and understand what is gonna make the game better for players here in this region." Keller promised a busy back half of the year: two more heroes, another map, further chapters of Overwatch's first annual narrative, and a Halloween event in season 5. Kong called the Busan visit "a bit like a homecoming," recalling the Overwatch Festival held in the city before the game launched in 2016. Korean players, he said, "have become really part of the building of Overwatch's history along with us." Bell, on his first visit to Busan, said meeting fans at a signing session had been the highlight, calling it "real special" to hear personal stories about why people play. "When they opened the doors to this event yesterday, the fans just came streaming in, and they didn't stop coming," Keller said. "There's a reason why the two professional gamers in the Overwatch universe, D.Va and D.Mon, are from Korea," he said, calling the country the imagined epicenter of competitive gaming culture. 2026-08-23 11:26:55
In Busan, Overwatch stops visiting and moves in BUSAN, August 22 (AJP) - A row of Overwatch's heroes had stepped off the screen onto a strip of astroturf — D.Va flashing her decorated pistol, Reaper looming under his hood, while Genji meditated on an orange beanbag, eyes shut tight in ease. All around the packed halls of BEXCO, thousands of fans of Blizzard's tactical shooter Overwatch buzzed with hype, clutching tote bags branded with the iconic circular pattern and the stamp-rally cards that would soon be creased from a full day of missions. This was not the typical annual G-Star festival held for a year's worth of game reveals, but the very first "Overwatch Day," a two-day offline celebration thrown by Nexon to mark the game's official Korean service. Overwatch, run by Blizzard, had long been playable on shared Asia servers. Just this February, the game shed its "Overwatch 2" label and went free-to-play; the handoff to Nexon put a domestic publisher in charge of the community for the first time. That shift lands at a pointed moment for the fiction, too, as Overwatch's newest hero, D.Mon, arrived on Aug. 11 as the 53rd character on the roster — a Korean tank pilot and the leader of MEKA Squad, the fictional South Korean mech unit that D.Va once flew with. Her debut carries meaning of place as well. Season 4:Heroes of Busan rebuilt the city map to show the scars of a Junker assault, and D.Mon — real name Yuna Lee, piloting a hulking red mech called Beast — steps out of years of background lore to defend her hometown with a Plasma Saber and Power Barrier. For the fans threading through BEXCO, the pull was simpler. Asked what she had looked forward to most, Thanuja, 35, a foreign fan who found the event through Instagram, did not hesitate. "Games," she said, her partner translating fluidly into Korean beside her. Jang Eun-ju, 28, and Kim Su-hyun, 26, came the same way, tipped off by Instagram. "I mostly play healers or tanks — Zenyatta or Reinhardt," said Kim, a seasoned player. Jang had come hunting merchandise, with her eye on one prize above all: a keycap stamped with the Overwatch logo. Both had a message for the game's new Korean steward. "I hope there's more active communication with users," Jang said, hopeful that a home-grown operator might listen more closely than a distant one. She added a second wish, lightly but pointedly: "I hope there won't be excessive monetization." Beyond the stage, the floor was a playground built from the game's own geography — a MEKA base, a temple, a stretch of Busan streetscape — where visitors ran seven missions to earn stamps and trade them for goods at a "Busan Station Tower" counter. Waits for any booths stretched past an hour. At one booth, a Taiko-style rhythm game lit up: twelve circular targets flashing in a grid while challengers hammered them frantically before the lights winked out. Just across the hall, players loaded semi-automatic Nerf blasters and squeezed off suction-tipped foam rounds with the calm of snipers. One woman kept clipping the divider between targets instead of the bullseye. "That's actually hard to hit!" a staffer laughed. A few steps over, a man inched a metal rod along a cut-out course, sweat on his brow, willing it not to touch. Men rolled foam dice studded with icons like something out of Dungeons & Dragons; a little girl grinned as she shoved a payload cart shaped like a battering ram across the floor. At the PC-bang zone, the real thing was underway — a 60-seat arena running quick single-match games in its Busan map, each capped with a Play of the Game award. "Hammer Down!" one player bellowed in Korean, eyes glittering as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Playing Reinhardt, he pancaked three foes in a row, then — with a boost from Ana — slammed a Kiriko into a nearby food stall, simultaneously crushing an enemy Ana who had just clawed her way back into the fight. Play of the Game. In the center of it all, weary players sank into beanbags, sorting the day's haul, while game sessions, including friendly matches with renowned players, boomed on and on from the main stage. Those sessions were where Nexon and Blizzard came to say their piece. On stage for the developer talk, Blizzard's Walter Kong, senior vice president and head of development for live games and mobile, cast Busan as more than a backdrop. "Busan is beautiful — the sea, the landmarks," Kong said, calling it a thrill to stand in the city that inspired the game. "The Korean community has been a huge source of strength from the very beginning." Game director Aaron Keller, on his first visit to Korea, said the team had leaned into the places fans love most. "Korea is one of the regions global fans especially adore, and there were so many requests to make a MEKA pilot playable," he said, calling D.Mon's Busan debut a special moment. "D.Mon is a character who has existed in our universe for a long time," Keller said, describing an early gun-focused prototype that gave way, revision by revision, to a sword-and-shield tank built for mobile, close-range aggression. Keller framed the Nexon tie-up as a way to close the distance to Korean players. "We judged that Nexon understands the Korean market and community best, so they were the most fitting partner," he said, adding that the deal should help Overwatch "grow and expand beyond Korea." Kong, asked where the game goes from here, waved off any notion of a victory lap at the 10-year mark. "Our journey doesn't end here. We have a long way to go," he said. "Overwatch is a living, breathing universe" — one, he added, that Blizzard means to keep building alongside Korean fans rather than for them. 2026-08-22 14:13:41
Rain eases South Gyeongsang drought but triggers landslide alerts SEOUL, August 16 (AJP) - South Gyeongsang province saw as much as 114.5 millimeters of rain on Sunday, easing a punishing stretch of heat and drought, even as torrential downpours in mountainous areas prompted heightened landslide warnings and scattered flooding. The Korea Meteorological Administration said the heaviest accumulation as of 3 p.m. was recorded at Geumnam in Hadong at 114.5 mm, followed by 99.5 mm on Mount Jiri in Sancheong and 92.5 mm in Hadong, with most key sites logging about 40 to 100 mm. A heavy rain warning was in effect for Namhae, Sacheon, Goseong, Geoje and Tongyeong, with a lesser advisory covering the rest of the province. Farms and reservoirs strained by falling water levels and stunted crops were expected to gain substantial relief from the rain. With more than 250 mm forecast for parts of Mount Jiri, the Korea Forest Service raised its landslide alert for the province, and disaster response headquarters shifted to emergency operations, tightening patrols of steep slopes and mountain valleys and clearing out campers. The Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Fire Headquarters said 13 incidents were reported across the province. A pile of rocks collapsed behind a temple in Hadong at 8:44 a.m., a utility pole toppled in Uiryeong at 9:05 a.m., and a basement flooded at a supermarket in Gimhae around 12:22 p.m., prompting drainage crews to respond. The weather agency forecast a further 150 to 250 mm or more through Sunday, concentrated along the southern coast and near Mount Jiri. No casualties were reported. AJP Takeaways • South Gyeongsang province recorded as much as 114.5 mm of rain on Saturday, easing weeks of heat and drought that had strained farms and reservoirs. • The Korea Forest Service raised its landslide alert to "caution" as more than 250 mm was forecast for parts of Mount Jiri. • The provincial fire service reported 13 weather-related incidents, including a rockslide and a toppled utility pole, but no casualties. 2026-08-16 15:54:38
Chey seeks stock-cash mix in $666 million divorce, ex-wife holds out for cash SEOUL, August 16 (AJP) - SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won balked at a court order to hand his former wife 944 billion won ($666.3 million) in cash because the two sides could not agree on how the record divorce settlement should be paid. Chey, 65, proposed settling part of the award with SK shares alongside cash, but Roh Soh-yeong, 65, the director of the Art Center Nabi and daughter of a former South Korean president, insisted on the full amount in cash, the legal sources said Sunday. The impasse pushed the chairman of the country's second-largest conglomerate to lodge a fresh appeal with the Supreme Court on Aug. 14, one minute before the midnight deadline. Chey had been prepared to accept the July 24 remand ruling and close a legal battle that has dragged on for more than nine years, according to sources. But he ran into trouble raising nearly 1 trillion won within about three weeks. He weighed selling part of his SK holdings, yet feared that a controlling shareholder dumping a large block of shares would rattle the stock price and the group's governance structure. To bridge the gap, Chey offered to blend cash with stock, pledging to cover any shortfall should the share price fall while waiving any claim to gains if it rose. Roh's side rejected the offer and demanded strict compliance with the ruling. Facing 5 percent annual interest from the day after the judgment became final — about 130 million won a day — Chey used the re-appeal to stave off the mounting charge while he hunts for a workable payment plan, analysts said. The court filing fee alone for contesting the full sum is estimated in the tens of billions of won. Chey's lawyers are expected to argue that the appellate court misapplied the law in fixing both the division ratio and the size of the award. The court valued his SK shares as of April 16, 2024, the close of arguments in the divorce trial, yet still factored in a subsequent surge — from 160,000 won to 858,000 won — in setting Roh's share at one-third, a point his side calls contradictory. SK stock has since slid more than 30 percent to around 500,000 won. AJP Takeaways • The dispute between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong is no longer over the size of the 944 billion won ($680 million) divorce award but over its form of payment, with Chey resisting a full cash settlement over concerns about liquidity and his grip on holding company SK Inc. • Chey filed his appeal with the Supreme Court of Korea one minute before the midnight deadline on Aug. 14, 2026, staving off 5 percent annual interest of about 130 million won a day while he seeks a workable payment plan; the filing fee alone for contesting the full sum is estimated in the tens of billions of won. • Chey's lawyers are expected to argue that the Seoul High Court, in its July 24, 2026 remand ruling, misapplied the law by valuing his SK Inc. shares as of April 16, 2024, yet still factoring a later price surge into Roh Soh-yeong's one-third share — a share price that has since fallen more than 30 percent to around 500,000 won. 2026-08-16 14:04:34
Most workers see bias against fixed-term staff, survey finds SEOUL, August 16 (AJP) - About 80 percent of South Korean workers believe discrimination exists between fixed-term and permanent employees, according to a survey released on Sunday, underscoring persistent tensions in the country's labor market as the government weighs loosening rules on non-regular hiring. The civic group Gabjil 119 said 80.4 percent of respondents to a poll conducted between June 1 and 7 said such discrimination was present. The survey, carried out by Global Research, canvassed 1,000 workers nationwide aged 19 and older. Temporary workers, at 84.6 percent, and those in their 50s, at 86.5 percent, were the most likely to perceive bias. Awareness of discrimination climbed steadily with age, rising from 72.1 percent among workers in their 20s to 79.8 percent for those in their 40s, suggesting the perception sharpens as careers lengthen. Nearly half of respondents, or 48.4 percent, doubted that a government "fairness allowance" could close the wage gap. About two-thirds, or 65.6 percent, said fixed-term workers could not freely exercise legal entitlements such as maternity and parental leave or the reporting of workplace harassment, while 64.2 percent said they could not join or form a union without repercussions. Gabjil 119 said its counseling hotline had fielded numerous complaints, including verbal abuse over a worker's appearance or alma mater, threats not to renew contracts, and denials of maternity leave. "Discrimination against fixed-term workers is not merely a wage-gap issue but a structural problem that makes it hard for workers to assert their rights," the group said. The organization urged the government to scrap a proposed special act on so-called mega special zones that would extend the maximum period for hiring fixed-term workers to four years from the current two, a measure it argued would entrench precarious employment. AJP Takeaways • In a survey of 1,000 South Korean workers conducted in June 2026, 80.4 percent said discrimination exists between fixed-term and permanent employees, with temporary workers and those in their 50s reporting the highest awareness. • About two-thirds of respondents said fixed-term workers cannot freely exercise legal rights such as maternity leave, parental leave, or union membership, which Gabjil 119 described as a structural barrier rather than a simple wage gap. • Gabjil 119 called on the government to withdraw the proposed Special Act on the Designation and Management of Mega Special Zones, which would extend the maximum fixed-term employment period to four years from two — a measure the Labor Ministry outlined to ruling-party lawmakers in late July 2026 but has not yet finalized as legislation. 2026-08-16 13:05:29
LG Electronics opens second Brazil plant to press Global South push SEOUL, August 16 (AJP) - LG Electronics has begun production at a new home-appliance plant in Brazil, deepening its drive into the Global South as the South Korean group leans on emerging markets to offset softening demand in the developed world. The factory in Parana state started operations on Thursday, the company said Sunday, becoming its second production base in Brazil after the Manaus plant established in the Amazonas state in 1996. The site can turn out about 600,000 refrigerators a year. The plant runs on a smart-factory system built around artificial intelligence and industrial robots, using vision-AI inspection and digital-twin technology to detect faults on the line before they arise, while multi-joint robots cut manufacturing costs and improve worker safety. The refrigerators are tailored to Brazilian homes, carrying a dual-voltage function suited to a grid that runs at 127 volts in some regions and 220 volts in others, along with sterilization and rapid-cooling features aimed at the country's hot, humid climate and home-party culture. LG plans to use Parana as an export hub reaching Argentina, Uruguay and other South American markets. "Building on the expanded capacity from the new Parana plant, we will secure stable supply and offer locally tailored appliances to raise our standing in Brazil and across Latin America," said Baek Seung-tae, head of LG's HS division. AJP Takeaways • LG Electronics has brought its second Brazilian plant online, shifting refrigerators for the region from imports to local assembly and shortening its supply lines into Latin America. • The Parana site anchors a "Global South" strategy — premium goods for developed markets, volume-zone products for emerging ones — after revenue across India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia rose more than 20 percent last year. • For Korea's flagship appliance maker, the plant is as much a hedge against saturated Western demand as a beachhead for exports to Argentina, Uruguay and beyond. 2026-08-16 10:37:47
Gartner sees one in five firms pulling back on AI by 2028 as costs mount SEOUL, August 16 (AJP) - South Korean companies racing to embed artificial intelligence across their operations face a mounting threat that has little to do with the technology itself: the bill. By 2028, about one in five organizations worldwide will scale back or abandon AI in parts of their operations and return to conventional software development, unable to rein in runaway costs, according to research from Gartner. The retreat is expected to concentrate in areas where the return fails to justify the spend. The reversal marks a sharp turn from the early land-grab era, when leading developers dangled free or heavily discounted access to win market share. As the large language model market consolidates around a handful of dominant suppliers, flat monthly subscriptions are giving way to pay-as-you-go pricing, handing pricing power to vendors and leaving customers unable to forecast their final tab. The strain is already visible at the world's largest firms. Microsoft in May halted Claude Code licenses for thousands of internal staff and shifted them to its own GitHub Copilot, while Uber Technologies burned through its entire 2026 AI budget in about four months after urging some 5,000 engineers to lean on AI coding tools, later capping monthly spending at about $1,500 per person. A McKinsey survey of 75 companies in May found that 93 percent had blown past their AI budgets. Agentic AI, which chains together multiple reasoning steps, drives the steepest overruns. Such systems can consume up to 30 times more tokens than a standard chatbot on the same task, and a failed output that forces the model to reprocess everything from scratch can push consumption as high as 50 times, with most of the cost accruing not in the first attempt but in the grind of revisions. Gartner has urged firms to adopt "AI FinOps," a discipline for tracking spending and performance in real time, and warns that the divide between companies that master cost control and those that cannot could widen across entire industries. AJP Takeaways • Gartner forecasts that by 2028 about one in five organizations worldwide will scale back or abandon AI in parts of their operations and revert to conventional software development because of uncontrolled costs. • Uber Technologies exhausted its entire 2026 AI budget in about four months in 2026 and capped engineer spending at about $1,500 a month, while Microsoft dropped Claude Code for its own GitHub Copilot in May 2026 to contain expenses. • A McKinsey & Company survey of 75 companies conducted in May 2026 found that 93 percent of respondents had exceeded their AI budgets, underscoring how token-based pricing is reshaping enterprise AI economics. 2026-08-16 09:39:13
Ottogi second-quarter net profit falls 2.7% as margins tighten SEOUL, August 14 (AJP) - Ottogi, one of South Korea's largest food manufacturers, announced that its second-quarter net profit fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier, as rising costs squeezed margins even though sales climbed on the back of instant noodles and stronger overseas demand. According to regulatory filings released Friday, net profit for the April to June period came to 33.2 billion won ($23.4 million). Revenue rose 4.6 percent to 943.8 billion won and operating profit edged up 0.3 percent to 45.3 billion won, but the operating margin slipped 0.2 percentage point to 4.8 percent. Overseas sales jumped 15.1 percent to 110.6 billion won, lifting their share of the total to 11.7 percent. "Domestic sales grew, led by our instant rice and cup noodle lines, and exports also increased," said an Ottogi spokesperson, pointing to the drivers behind the quarter's top-line gains. For the first half, operating profit rose 2.0 percent to 104.6 billion won as revenue climbed 4.2 percent to 1.9 trillion won and net profit gained 1.3 percent to 68.3 billion won. Overseas sales for the six months grew 12.3 percent to 220.5 billion won, while the operating margin eased 0.1 percentage point to 5.5 percent. Shares of Ottogi closed at 337,000 won per stock, up 3.22 percent from the day before. AJP Takeaways • Ottogi's second-quarter net profit fell 2.7% despite a 4.6% rise in sales, showing that cost pressure — not weak demand — is the drag on earnings. • Overseas sales jumped 15.1% in the quarter and now account for 11.7% of the total, signaling that exports, not the saturated domestic market, are driving growth. • The operating margin slipped to 4.8%, a sign that Korean food makers may face tougher pricing and cost decisions in the second half. 2026-08-14 15:55:56
Korea's game groups press for production and e-sports tax breaks SEOUL, August 14 (AJP) - South Korea's game industry associations urged the government to extend tax relief to game production costs and e-sports tournaments, arguing that the country's most lucrative cultural export remains shut out of incentives its rivals take for granted. Five bodies, including the Korea Game Developers Association, the Korea Association of Game Industry and the Korea e-Sports Association, said in a joint statement on Friday that games account for about 60 percent of the country's content exports yet are excluded from the production-cost tax credit available to film, broadcast, over-the-top and webtoon producers. The groups said existing research and integrated investment credits fail to capture the outlays unique to game-making, such as planning, scenario writing, graphics and localization. Britain, France and Canada, they noted, run production rebate schemes of 25 percent to 30 percent or more. "A tax credit applied after the fact, to companies that actually host tournaments and spend the money, is an indispensable system," the associations said, warning that discretionary grants alone would not spur private investment. Citing a Korea Creative Content Agency study, they said a production-cost credit could generate about 2.26 trillion won ($1.59 billion) in output and roughly 15,000 jobs over five years. The associations also called for extending an expiring e-sports credit, now covering 10 percent of operating costs for tournaments held outside the capital region, urging that it be widened nationwide and raised to 20 percent before its scheduled expiry at the end of 2026. AJP Takeaways • The government's 2026 tax reform proposal moves the existing e-sports credit toward a spending-based grant system, a shift the industry opposes as narrower and less predictable than an automatic credit. • The push reflects a persistent gap: webtoons won a production credit effective 2026, but games and music remain excluded, despite repeated legislative attempts from both major parties. • The Ministry of Economy and Finance has resisted, arguing the film-oriented credit targets sectors with strong nation-branding and tourism spillovers — a rationale the game groups directly contest with their export-share figure. 2026-08-14 15:02:02
Nexon Q2 profit slips even as MapleStory powers record first half SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - Nexon revealed that its second-quarter operating profit fell 17 percent from a year earlier, a decline that underscored tough comparisons for the Tokyo-listed South Korean game maker even as booming demand for its MapleStory franchise drove record first-half sales. Quarterly revenue edged up 2 percent to 121.1 billion yen ($759 million), while operating income slipped to 31.3 billion yen from 37.7 billion yen a year earlier. Net income jumped 77 percent to 29.6 billion yen. The half-year picture was stronger. First-half revenue climbed 17 percent to 273.3 billion yen and net income more than doubled, rising 102 percent to ¥86.9 billion — both records for the company, which reports on a consolidated basis through its Japanese parent. The firm attributed its flagship RPG MapleStory for much of the heavy lifting. Revenue across the franchise surged 63 percent year on year to a quarterly high, lifted by summer updates to the 22-year-old PC original in Korea and the West and by the overseas rollout of mobile spin-off MapleStory: Idle RPG. The sandbox platform MapleStory Worlds saw sales jump 123 percent, buoyed by strong reception in Korea and Taiwan. ARC Raiders, the extraction shooter from Nexon's Swedish studio Embark, marked cumulative sales passing 16.3 million units nine months after its October debut. Overseas and PC-console revenue rose 44 percent and 27 percent respectively in the first half, both half-year records. "We posted solid results in the second quarter on the strong momentum of the MapleStory franchise and the steady contribution from ARC Raiders," said Chief Executive Lee Jung-hun, adding that Nexon would broaden its lineup in the second half with new titles including a mobile version of Dave the Diver and the Japan launch of Mabinogi Mobile. AJP Takeaways • Nexon's second-quarter operating profit fell 17 percent year-on-year to 31.3 billion yen (294.3 billion won), as the 2 percent revenue gain to 121.1 billion yen was outpaced by tougher comparisons, even though all three headline figures beat the company's guidance. • On a first-half basis, revenue rose 17 percent to 273.3 billion yen and net profit more than doubled, up 102 percent to 86.9 billion yen — both company records — with the MapleStory franchise surging 63 percent in the quarter and ARC Raiders passing 16.3 million cumulative units. • Nexon is banking on a second-half pipeline to sustain momentum, including the global rollout of Dave the Diver's mobile version in September and the Japan launch of Mabinogi Mobile in the fourth quarter, as growth stays concentrated in its two flagship IPs. 2026-08-13 16:24:23