South Korean mega-publisher Krafton, which owns PUBG: Battlegrounds and recently released The Callisto Protocol (opens in new tab), has published a strategy note (opens in new tab) on 2023 (Eurogamer (opens in new tab Open in new tab) was published by Eurogamer (open in new tab).

According to the company, the key items are "sustainable growth" and global expansion of its publishing business, summarized as "more games, new publishing strategies."

"Our ultimate vision of securing and expanding a strong game-based IP is unwavering. To achieve this, we emphasize the need to focus our capabilities now and into 2023, to innovate and focus our organizational capabilities, to strengthen our publishing capabilities and systems, and to continue to invest in our future."

What matters are the games: Krafton is clearly not satisfied with how few and how quickly it has been publishing and, mixing a few metaphors, declares that it will "foster a robust and attractive pipeline of new games." In addition to restructuring internally, the company is also working with second parties (i.e., publishing other companies' games) and actively seeking outside developers to invest in.

It is hard not to see this in relation to certain recent stories and broader themes of the last few years. First of all, "The Callisto Protocol" sold only 2 million copies, not 5 million, below Krafton's rather overestimated projections (opens in new tab), showing that big bets don't always come off; Krafton published one other book last year, "Moonbreaker" (new tab opens in a new tab), but this does not make up for these shortfalls, and he wants a more extensive slate with more games.

The broader theme here is that Krafton also placed a very large bet on the PUBG brand, and after its IPO in 2021, made "media and platform expansion around the PUBG IP" a core part of its strategy. While "Callisto Protocol" began, almost unbelievably, as a PUBG game, with "PUBG Mobile" and "New State Mobile" (originally released as "PUBG: New State"), the simple fact is that this particular game and setting is a spin-off of the extended universe doesn't seem particularly suited for something like that: with all due respect to PUBG, it's no "Lord of the Rings."

Crafton employees seem to be starting to realize the same thing." While PUBG remains a major priority for Krafton, the company's commitment for 2023 is to develop a deeper catalog of titles." That seems sensible, and Krafton is already preparing something other than PUBG, including a very expensive-looking game (opens in new tab) based on the popular Korean novel "The Tear-Drinking Bird."

More worryingly, Krafto has drunk the web3 Kool-Aid, and PUBG creator Brendan Green is no doubt considering using blockchain (opens in new tab) in his next game." Growth in these areas is not guaranteed without investment." Kim said." These technology areas are closely related to one of Crafton's core competencies, game production technology, so it is worthwhile to expand into these technology areas."

One would hope that game production would be a core competence of a game production company, but I digress; no one doubts the enormous and continuing success of PUBG, but beyond a direct sequel, the game did not seem to fit the ambitions that Crafton has.