The Foreigner, The Joker: Dual Identity of Migrant Game Industry Workers in South Korea

This study examines the experiences of migrant game industry workers in South Korea, a country with a large, well-established domestic game sector that remains exceptionally homogeneous in its workforce. Presented as work-in-progress research for DiGRA 2026, it draws on eleven semi-structured interview transcripts collected since 2022 from seven migrant workers, two of whom participated in longitudinal follow-up sessions. The work is framed as a comparative case study following earlier research on expatriate game workers in Finland, which has a strong industry but relies more heavily on imported talent.

The central argument is that Korea's domestic-centric ecosystem, supported by abundant local educational institutions and a restrictive immigration system, reduces the need to recruit foreign workers and shapes how those who do arrive are integrated. Most interviewees had no game industry experience before migrating, and most arrived for reasons unrelated to games. Participants viewed the industry as offering better career prospects, pay, and living standards than other sectors open to foreigners, but reported that skills acquired abroad often became obsolete due to proprietary tools and domestic development methods, and that migrants were frequently confined to peripheral English-language roles such as localisation or global services, sometimes physically or socially separated from Korean colleagues.

The study finds that migrant workers must adopt two professional identities: assimilating by demonstrating Korean language proficiency and conforming to workplace hierarchies, while also serving as culturally valued "jokers" who offer insights into Western, English-speaking markets. The author notes that work-based residence permits, which are often tied to a single employer, make workers vulnerable to abuse and deportation, compelling them to tolerate poor conditions. The research is expected to contribute to understanding diverse game development cultures and the conditions of game labour.