Lies of P developer eyes sustainable success after pivoting to PC, console gaming
BUSAN — When Kim Seung-chul took the helm of NEOWIZ as co-CEO in 2021, the company was facing dire needs for a major shift in its operation.
The company was once considered one of Korea’s big three game companies in the 2000s, publishing multiple hit titles while games developed by its own studios achieved noticeable success.
In the 2010s, however, the domestic market shifted toward mobile and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and many of NEOWIZ’s in-house titles struggled to gain traction, leaving a handful of board game franchises to carry much of the company’s profitability for a long period of time.
A turning point came when the company launched its action game, Lies of P, in 2023 and achieved global success.
The game did not rely on what had long been considered the traditional formula for Korean games, such as MMORPGs involving large-scale player-vs-player content, pay-to-win system and convoluted storylines that didn’t appeal to a large swath of players.
Instead, Lies of P focused on delivering a strong narrative through PC and console platforms and adopted a souls-like gameplay. Souls-like refers to a subgenre of action games that followed FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series, known for their high difficulty and combat-focused play that requires strong player skill.
During an interview with The Korea Times on the sidelines of the G-Star 2025 game convention in Busan on Thursday, Kim recalled that the moment marked “a major pivot in the company’s overall direction,” helping the company focus on “building franchises that have strong intellectual property (IP).”
“For years in this business, I felt like nothing was really accumulating, with projects following the same cycle of launching with strong revenue and then slowly fading,” said Kim, who began his career at NEOWIZ in 2002.
“While preparing Lies of P, we benchmarked PC and console studios like Capcom, and saw how its franchise IP such as Resident Evil, Monster Hunter and Street Fighter kept growing through long-running series. That made me realize how crucial narrative is in building a franchise. Strong storytelling creates emotional attachment, and that’s what brings fans back when a sequel is released.”
Choi Ji-won, left, Director of ROUND8, a NEOWIZ studio that developed Lies of P: Overture, speaks during the 2025 Korea Game Awards in Busan, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Nam Hyun-woo
Launched in September 2023, Lies of P won grand prize at that year’s Korea Game Awards — the country’s biggest honor in games — and has sold over 3 million copies worldwide so far. The new direction for NEOWIZ brought the company even more success that year as SANABI, an indie game it published, became a surprise hit in the market thanks to its solid storyline and unique gameplay.
NEOWIZ has successfully extended the success of Lies of P by releasing its first downloadable content (DLC), Lies of P: Overture. The DLC clinched two prizes at this year’s Korea Game Awards, becoming the first of its kind to do so. The company will publish SANABI: A Haunted Day as a free DLC on Nov. 27.
Kim said the company’s pivot is aimed at sustaining growth through series titles that can build lasting fan bases rather than competing in the already saturated MMORPG market, which can generate explosive short-term revenue if successful but carries a very low probability of success.
“You may think PC and console games generate only one-off sales, but they can continue to make revenue because they are not bound to a live-service model (like typical online games),” Kim said.
“In the past, when games were sold only as offline packages, this model wasn’t possible. Sales depended on whether the box was on store shelves, with new titles pushing older ones out. Now, with digital distribution, a game like GTA 5 still appears on Steam, and sales rise again during promotions. It allows for steady, long-term revenue.”
Kim noted that when a game company builds a solid “back catalogue,” a term referring to older titles that continue to sell, sales often rise whenever a new release comes out. He said that having multiple projects in the pipeline gives the company “a sense of steady progress, even if there are no explosive short-term revenues.” He added that Lies of P also saw an increase in base-game sales after its DLC launch.
Kim said this is the strength of narrative-driven games, as strong storytelling creates opportunities for transmedia expansion into films or animation, citing the case of Cyberpunk, which expanded its universe through the Netflix series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.” Kim added that NEOWIZ is also exploring opportunities for film and video adaptations for Lies of P and is in contact with industry partners.
A promotion image of NEOWIZ's SANABI / Courtesy of NEOWIZ
Aside from NEOWIZ, many other Korean game studios have been trying to expand their portfolios with narrative-driven PC and console titles in recent years, yet only a few have succeeded. Kim said the main reason is the lack of qualified manpower.
“The most difficult challenge is hiring developers with experience in single-campaign or narrative-driven games, because most developers in Korea have backgrounds in mobile MMORPGs,” he said.
“We plan to launch an aggressive hiring campaign next year because our new strategy is now on track,” he said. “Many MMORPG studios shut down because the genre carries such a high risk of failure. Our approach offers more long-term growth and allows developers to preserve and build their capabilities over time.” He said the company is also hiring overseas specialists in publishing.
NEOWIZ Co-CEO Kim Seung-chul speaks during an interview with The Korea Times on the sidelines of G-Star 2025 game convention in Busan, Thursday. Courtesy of NEOWIZ
Along with developing its own games, NEOWIZ is focusing on narrative-driven games in its overseas publishing business. NEOWIZ signed publishing contracts with Polish game developer Zakazane in October 2024 and in U.S.-based Wolfeye Studios in January this year. The former is developing a narrative RPG set in the American West, while Wolfeye is working on a sci-fi RPG title that emphasizes storytelling and quests.
“We are a company that actively invests in teams like these. If there is a studio that wants to grow its IP over the next decade, we want to meet them and build that partnership,” Kim said.
