One of South Korea's top game developers and publishers, NCSoft, is ramping up its efforts to boost the development of intellectual property by supporting emerging artists.

The company has been carrying out a number of sponsorship campaigns, especially in the character industry, which can generate various derivative content including games, comics and merchandise other than characters themselves.

Under its flagship sponsorship program, Rookie Project, since 2021, the company has been discovering and fostering talented new intellectual property creators in collaboration with the Korea Creative Content Agency and Coex.

Through the project, talented artists are selected to showcase their character inventions at the Korea Character Licensing Fair, the largest licensing business fair in the country.

The participating artists will be provided with mentoring support and booths for exhibitions from the company as well as opportunities to forge business partnerships at the fair.

At this year’s Character Licensing Fair, a total of 50 artists exhibited and promoted their characters invented under the company’s sponsorship.

“Participating in a fair is really great opportunity, but for rookies, it also comes with immense pressure. However, the secretariat greatly helped me as I was provided with various forms of support such as mentoring, ” said one of the award recipients from the Rookie Project.

The company is expanding its sponsorship programs into various creative areas including the country's webtoon and design industries.

As part of its commitment to fostering talented new professionals in the game industry, the company has been hosting competitions in collaboration with Dongyang University since last year.

At this year’s competition, design was newly included in the evaluation criteria in addition to its existing categories: game art and webtoon animation.

By expanding its evaluation categories, the company aims to broaden its support into other areas including visual and spatial design.

The winners of the competition are also given the opportunity to visit and explore NCSoft's headquarters in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province.

"Continuing our efforts since last year, this year's competition aims to discover highly creative young artists and to support their aspirations," an official from NCSoft stated.

"We seek to support new talent not only in the game industry but also in creative areas such as webtoon animation and design."