As the business realities of competitive gaming continue to test organizations, DRX is charting a course out of the esports winter. While global market projections point toward robust industry growth, climbing player salaries and volatile tournament revenues have squeezed team operators. Seeking a durable financial foundation, DRX has maintained profitability since 2024 by diversifying its operations, and leadership is now accelerating a pivot into digital entertainment, intellectual property acquisition, and international talent academies.
DRX posted 34.23 billion won ($25.56 million) in revenue in 2025, marking a 2.67 percent dip from the previous year, while operating profit grew 162 percent to 250.35 million won, The Korea Times reported. Speaking at the organization’s headquarters in Seoul’s Mapo District, CEO Yang “Can” Sun-il outlined a strategy to double both revenue and operating profit within three years by transforming DRX into a broader digital entertainment company.
Expanding Beyond Competitive Gaming Through Korean Drama Investments
The foundation of this expansion rests on leveraging the value of Korean cultural exports. Yang pointed to markets across Southeast Asia—specifically Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia—where commercial products enjoy deep market integration. According to Yang, K-culture has advanced to such a degree that treating competitive gaming and media content as separate entities is no longer necessary.
This vision is taking shape through Webs Creative, a wholly owned subsidiary of DRX. The production arm recently joined two Korean drama projects. For the upcoming series The First Seventeenth, featuring a script selected through a tvN network contest, Webs Creative is participating as an outsourced production company ahead of its scheduled broadcast next year. For White Scandal, starring actor Song Kang, the subsidiary has taken a step further by investing in the drama’s intellectual property, with distribution secured through MBC and Disney+.
“We are still at an early stage, but our ultimate goal is to participate in coproductions or secure IPs, develop them further into various formats and sell the resulting content to broadcasters while retaining a stake in the IP’s future expansion,” Yang told The Korea Times. By holding onto these underlying stakes, DRX intends to harness the performance of Korean drama IPs in Southeast Asia to drive growth.
Testing Grounds in Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Partnership
DRX began testing its Southeast Asian strategy through esports. In 2023, the organization held a League of Legends (LoL) tryout in Vietnam and brought two players to Korea. Last year, Tran “LazyFeel” Bao Minh made history by becoming the first international competitor to play in the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), subsequently earning an invitation to an August 2025 state banquet celebrating Vietnamese and Korean leadership.
With authorization from Riot Games, DRX hosted a pair of regular-season LCK fixtures in Vietnam this May, filling all 10,000 available tickets. Building on that momentum, the organization identified Indonesia as its next key market. On August 26, DRX established a strategic alliance with PT Nuon Digital Indonesia, an affiliate belonging to Telkom Group, which stands as the largest telecommunications provider in Indonesia. The agreement covers live entertainment, game publishing, and talent development.
To establish a pipeline for talented Indonesian athletes to break into professional regional competition, the collaboration merges DRX Academy curricula with domestic Korean training camps.
Standardizing the Academy Model Across International Markets
Alongside media production and team operations, the DRX Academy serves as a business Yang hopes to develop into a stable source of revenue. DRX currently runs a licensed training facility in Seoul that attracts approximately 250 monthly participants, placing it second in local market enrollment figures according to Yang.
“Just as taekwondo is taught around the world through a Korean training system, we can take our know-how directly to local markets or scale and standardize it through joint ventures with local partners,” Yang said. “If we establish teams in Southeast Asia and demonstrate that our system works better, the next step will be to bring our academy there as well.”
Drawing on its background running competitive squads across 11 distinct intellectual properties—the most extensive lineup among domestic esports enterprises—DRX is preparing for further expansion. Its roster spans League of Legends and Valorant as well as Tekken, Street Fighter and eFootball. Bae “Knee” Jae-min, who competes in Tekken 8 for Kiwoom DRX, secured a gold medal representing the national delegation during last month’s Asian Games fighting game tournament.
Investment decisions require careful planning because competitive gaming properties typically experience brief life cycles, noted DRX Chief Investment Officer Lee Jae-young. He emphasized that the company’s multi-game expertise and proficiency in spotting high-potential titles will serve as vital advantages during its ongoing expansion.
