BIC 2026 Panel: What Makes a Game an IP, and Why SANABI 2 Waits
The panel reframes IP as a receiver-granted concept, not a developer goal, and explains Wonder Potion's deliberate detour into a new game before SANABI 2.
Reporting from 1 source: 4Gamer.net.
At BIC 2026, Wonder Potion's Seunghyun Yu and Sinkhole Studio's Jungkyu Kwon discussed what turns a game into an IP. Yu defined IP as content that can expand in any direction without feeling off, listing four traits. He also explained why Wonder Potion is making a new game before SANABI 2: to build team strength after SANABI's linear design fell short of his metroidvania ambitions.
Seunghyun Yu opened the BIC 2026 session by asking why Super Mario and Zelda feel like IP while Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto do not. His answer: IP is content that can expand in an entirely different direction without feeling wrong. He proposed four traits that create that feeling: expandability and independence, where the core concept does not depend on one story; incompleteness, where no single character's arc ends the content; openness, where the identity survives being converted into other media; and a vague sense of being IP, driven by fan works and memes.
Yu admitted SANABI is not yet an IP by his own standard, though he wants it to become a strong series. He is building toward that with a free side-story DLC, merchandise funding, and a collaboration cafe. He also explained why Wonder Potion is developing a new game before SANABI 2: SANABI was a linear platformer after a metroidvania design proved too difficult, and the team wants to strengthen its fundamentals first.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.