Blue Archive Director Kim Yong-ha Keynotes BIC2026 on Subculture, IP, and AI
Kim's keynote frames subculture games as full 'worlds' built on relationships and fan creation, and argues that human aesthetic judgment is the remaining edge as AI floods the market with content.
Reporting from 1 source: 4Gamer.net.
NEXON Games IO division head Kim Yong-ha delivered the opening keynote at BIC2026 in Busan, tracing how subculture games grew from niche to a market larger than any single major game. He detailed Blue Archive's IP design around lifestyle, repeated actions, symbols, and relationships, then asked what human aesthetic judgment remains in an AI era.
Kim Yong-ha, who has overseen Blue Archive development and global service since 2018 and now also manages the new project Project RX, opened BIC2026 with a keynote titled "How Does a Game Become a World?" The talk, delivered in Korean without simultaneous interpretation, was structured around subculture, IP, and indie games.
Kim argued that subculture is no longer a small domain, citing Blue Archive's offline running event drawing about 4,000 people and Pixiv submissions for the game exceeding 270,000. He framed IP around repeated actions, memorable symbols, and relationships, with Blue Archive built on the keywords school, youth, and military.
He closed by asking what remains for humans in an AI era, a question he said was not exaggerated despite the grand title.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.