The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) released the 2025 Game Industry Labor Environment Survey report on December 18.

The survey examined the labor environment of 3,000 game industry professionals and assessed the impact of AI technology on reducing working hours and improving productivity.

According to the report, the average weekly working hours for employees stood at 42.9 hours, a slight decrease from the previous year. However, unofficial working hours, such as off-the-clock tasks, increased to 9.2 hours, up 3.5 hours from 5.7 hours the previous year.

The crunch mode experience rate was 35.5%, similar to the previous year (34.3%). However, the average duration increased to 16.2 days, more than double the previous year's 7.4 days. This was attributed to structural factors such as constant workload increases (42.0%) and system errors (40.6%), indicating a need for improvements in work processes.

For large companies with 300 or more employees, 72.5% provided financial compensation for overtime, whereas only 7.7% of companies with fewer than 5 employees did so. Regarding rest after crunch mode, 63.5% of companies with fewer than 5 employees reported providing such measures, showing that compensation methods and recovery policies vary depending on company size.

The survey also found that 72% of professionals use AI technology in their work, leading to a 32.4% reduction in average working hours. AI adoption also boosted productivity and creative quality by 34.8% each, with 70.3% of respondents expressing an intention to continue using the technology.

The 2025 Game Industry Labor Environment Survey report is available on the official Korea Creative Content Agency website.