Which Game Genres Do Korean Gamers Play Together?

Genre Overlap Structures and Triplet Consumption Patterns Based on Association Analysis

Understanding game consumption among Korean gamers requires more than looking at single-genre preferences. Many gamers actively play multiple genres in parallel, making it difficult to capture real play behavior through popularity rankings alone. To address this, this analysis applies Association Analysis to examine how game genres are actually combined in Korean gamers’ play experiences.

The study is based on survey data from n = 285 gamers, who selected all game genres they had played in the past six months from a list of 11 genres. Rather than asking “Which genre is most popular?”, the core question of this analysis is “Which genres are chosen together in real gameplay?” This approach better reflects the multi-game, multi-genre consumption structure that characterizes Korean gamers.

Reading Korean Game Genre Consumption Through Support and Lift

To interpret the nature of genre combinations, this analysis uses two key metrics: Support and Lift.

Support represents the proportion of respondents who selected a specific combination of genres, indicating how common that combination is across the market.Lift, by contrast, measures how strongly genres are associated with one another beyond what would be expected by chance, capturing the degree of structural cohesion rather than simple popularity.

Taken together, Support explains the representativeness of a genre combination, while Lift reveals its internal cohesion and preference density. Viewing both metrics simultaneously allows for a more nuanced understanding of Korean gamers’ genre consumption patterns.

Highest-Support Triplet: The “Average” Competitive Play Structure

The Triplet with the highest Support consists of Real-Time Strategy (RTS), Battle Royale, and MOBA. This combination shows a Support value of approximately 0.30, meaning nearly 30% of all gamers reported playing all three genres together.

Such a high Support at the Triplet level suggests that this pattern is not driven by a temporary surge in a single genre, but rather by the natural overlap of already high-penetration competitive genres. MOBA is the central genre in the Korean market, played by over 70% of respondents, while both Battle Royale and RTS are also selected by close to half of all gamers.

The Lift value for this Triplet is approximately 1.6. This indicates that while the three genres co-occur more often than chance would predict, they are not tightly bound to a narrow niche group. Instead, MOBA, Battle Royale, and RTS are genres that are naturally played in parallel, unified by shared mechanics such as real-time decision-making and competitive intensity.

The combination of high Support and moderate Lift suggests that this Triplet represents the baseline competitive genre portfolio of the average Korean gamer.

Highest-Lift Triplet: A Smaller but Highly Concentrated RPG Structure

In contrast, the Triplet with the highest Lift consists of Idle/Auto/Puzzle RPG, MMORPG, and Action RPG. This combination records a Lift value above 4, clearly indicating a strong structural association among these genres.

Notably, none of these genres rank at the very top in individual genre popularity. Each shows a selection rate of roughly 30%, placing them below mass-market genres such as MOBA or Battle Royale. Yet their exceptionally high Lift at the Triplet level reveals a highly structured preference cluster among the gamers who play them together.

The Support for this Triplet is approximately 10%, indicating that it represents a smaller segment of the overall market. However, this lower prevalence actually sharpens the identity of the group. MMORPGs provide long-term progression and world immersion, Action RPGs emphasize combat feel and skill mastery, and Idle or Auto RPGs support repetitive growth and routine play. While mechanically different, all three converge on a shared motivation: continuous character growth and sustained immersion.

The high Lift value shows that this motivation acts as a powerful organizing principle, tightly binding different RPG sub-genres into a coherent consumption structure.

A Market of Broad Competition and Deep RPG Engagement

Taken together, the Association Analysis reveals a dual structure within the Korean game market. The highest-Support competitive Triplet explains the broad, mainstream play behavior of Korean gamers, while the highest-Lift RPG Triplet captures a smaller but highly concentrated core segment with strong preference cohesion.

These two structures are difficult to identify through genre popularity alone. However, Triplet-based Association Analysis makes it clear that the Korean game market is multi-layered, combining a widely shared competitive foundation with deeply immersed RPG-centric consumption clusters.

This finding highlights why understanding Korean gamers requires looking not only at what they play most, but also at what they play together.

Data Source: Direct Research Korea panel, n=285 (Male 59.3%, Female 40.7%)

Online Fieldwork: Dec 3–5, 2025