Com2uS Chairman Song Byung-joon: "Whether Feature Phones or AI, the Question

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OpenAI and Com2uS hosted 'OpenAI Game Builders Seoul' last August at 'Graphic by Daeshin' in Seoul. Marking OpenAI's first game development hackathon powered by its AI coding agent 'Codex', the event brought together 40 teams that passed the online qualifiers alongside first-generation Korean developers as mentors.The setup of the event itself revealed the nature of this hackathon. Developers who pioneered the mobile game market during the feature phone era—when a single game was constrained to just 24 KB—stood before creators building complete games in five hours. Separated by 25 years, the two generations gathered on the same stage around a single question: "In an era where creation has become easier, where does the value of a game come from?"Why OpenAI Chose Seoul as Its First Host LocationThe event opened with a video welcoming address by Oliver Jay, International Managing Director at OpenAI.

Highlighting the significance of bringing together developers who drove the growth of Korea's gaming industry and new builders of the AI era, Jay noted that the cycle from ideation to realization is shrinking. He stated, "I hope Korean developers actively leverage AI to boldly challenge new gameplay possibilities."Explaining the choice of host location, he added, "Korea possesses both world-class game development prowess and a dynamic developer community, making it the most perfect place to demonstrate new possibilities where AI and gaming converge."At the venue, first-generation developers, including Nexsus Advisor Song Jae-kyung, participated as mentors to review team projects and share their expertise.

Organizing the hackathon, Com2uS provided participants with plugins built on 'Hive', its backend service platform developed over 25 years of operating global live services.Song Jae-kyung: "Coding Throughput Up 8x—AI Is Not a Tool, but a Participant"Taking the stage as the first keynote speaker, Nexsus Advisor Song Jae-kyung shared insights from 'OpenMMO', a solo development project built using a generative AI pipeline. He also displayed development screens published on GitHub.Song revealed that coding throughput increased more than eightfold after adopting Codex. The weight of his presentation lay in how he conceptualized AI.

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He defined AI not merely as a development assistance tool, but as a 'new participant (agent)' capable of reasoning and acting autonomously within the game. He went on to propose a game ecosystem model where humans and AI interact under the same set of rules.It was a shift in perspective, moving AI from a speed-boosting tool to a core agent shaping game content—a concept particularly striking coming from a veteran developer who has long worked on MMORPG design.Song Byung-joon: "In the 24 KB Era or Now, the Question Remains the Same"In his opening keynote, Com2uS Chairman Song Byung-joon looked back on the feature phone development environment of the early 2000s—an era of black-and-white screens and 24 KB storage limits, where developers squeezed every line of code.

Since then, mobile phones have evolved to run blockbuster titles tens of gigabytes in size, and dev tools have shifted from manually writing code line by line to implementing features through conversation with AI.Chairman Song said, "Now, by conversing with AI, you can translate ideas into code, run them instantly, and iterate on the fly," noting that an 'era of democratized creation' has arrived where anyone can turn an idea into a game. He explained that while realizing ideas used to require significant time and labor, the arrival of AI is fundamentally transforming how games are built.At the same time, he pointed out an unchanging pillar.

"Whether in the feature phone era fighting against extreme constraints, or today when concepts can be built in an instant with AI, there is a core element that never changes," Song emphasized. "No matter how much the technological environment shifts, the fundamental question a developer must ask remains: 'What fun will this deliver?'"Just as the new technology called 'mobile' reshaped the gaming landscape 25 years ago, he expressed high hopes for how far AI will expand the industry.Song remarked, "Just as game creation has become easier thanks to AI, the way completed projects are presented to players must also evolve." His view is that as the freedom to build expands, the process of launching into global markets should become equally accessible.At this junction, Com2uS introduced its next-generation backend platform, 'Hive Axyl'.

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Chairman Song expressed his hope that "ideas sparked at this event will become actual games that meet players around the world," adding that the platform encapsulates 25 years of accumulated live service expertise.While collaboration with AI has expanded the scope of production a solo developer can handle, backend infrastructure—spanning account systems, payments, push notifications, data analytics, and server operations once a game is finished—remains a barrier.