[Edaily Reporter An Yu-ri ] “When I created ‘The Land of the Wind’ 30 years ago, it took me a year to write 30,000 lines of code. Now, working alone on ‘Open MMO’ for eight months, I’ve written 160,000 lines. I’m doing about eight times as much work. Codex handles the coding seamlessly on its own.”

Song Jae-kyung, a first-generation game developer who created ‘The Land of the Wind’ and ‘Lineage’ and former CEO of XL Games, shared his experience with game development using artificial intelligence (AI). He explained that AI coding agents are significantly boosting game developers’ productivity, fundamentally changing the way games are made.

Former CEO Song took the stage as a speaker at “OpenAI Game Builders Seoul,” held on the 31st at Graphic by Daesin in Wirye, Seoul, where he shared his experiences developing games using the coding agent “Codex.”

This marks the first time OpenAI has hosted a hackathon focused on game development using Codex. At the event, 40 teams selected from the online preliminaries participated in the finals and developed games themselves using Codex.

Song explained that implementing game technologies—which used to require a significant amount of time—can now be quickly prototyped using AI.

“In the past, to create the ‘Gerstner Wave ocean shader,’ which captures the feel of ocean waves, or a physics-based ‘cape simulation,’ one would have had to spend months learning these techniques and building prototypes,” he said. “Now, all you have to do is tell the AI what you want, and it creates it for you.”

Codex is a coding agent released by OpenAI in May of last year. When a user describes a desired feature in natural language, it performs software development tasks such as writing and modifying code. As of August of this year, the combined weekly active user base for ChatGPT Work and Codex exceeded 20 million.

Oliver Jay, Managing Director at OpenAI, also expressed interest in the Korean gaming industry. He said, “Few places have advanced gaming to the extent that Korea has—from online games to esports and virtual worlds.”

Developed with Codex and Launched with HYBE

This hackathon went beyond simply creating games; participants implemented features necessary for actual service operation.

Participants developed games using Codex and then integrated them with Com2uS Holdings’ backend service, “HYBE,” to implement features necessary for game operations, such as login, payment, user analytics, and security.

Com2uS Corporation also introduced “HYBE Axyl,” a new platform scheduled for release in the third quarter of this year. It is a platform that supports Software Development Kit (SDK) integration using Codex and the setup of game servers. Projects created as plugins include the basic structure required for server development, as well as development, build, and deployment environments.

Com2uS Corporation Chairman Song Byung-jun stated, “If Codex expands the freedom to create games, then HYBE must expand the freedom to bring those games to the world.”

Game Developers Also Say, “AI Gives Us Wings”

Leading developers in the domestic game industry also shared their experiences and outlook on game development using

AI

.

Kim Yong-ha, Executive Producer at NEXON Games, emphasized the role of human developers, noting that AI has limitations when it comes to independently judging a game’s fun factor and user experience. “Since AI cannot actually experience the game firsthand, it doesn’t know how the finished product will feel to humans,” he said. “The synergy that humans can create and how we incorporate the human touch into AI are what make the difference in the final result.”

Kim Dae-hwan, CEO of Aeverton, assessed that AI will contribute to reducing the costs and development time of game development. “There have been concerns that the game industry does not yield a high return on investment (ROI),” he said. “Despite low profitability, development took a long time and was costly. AI has given game development a boost.”

The event featured former CEO Song, along with Kim Yong-ha, Executive Producer at NEXON Games; Kim Dae-hwan, CEO of Averton; Park Beom-jin, CEO of Aquatri; Ban Seung-cheol, CEO of Second Dive; Lee Jeong-woong, former CEO of SundayToz; Lim Hyun-soo, former CTO of SundayToz; Kim Dong-kyu, founder of Highidea; Go Jeong-hwan, co-CEO of Supervillain Labs; Hong Seong-jin, former CTO of the Devsisters corporation; Lee Jun-hee, CTO of Artoo; and Park Sang-jun, Director of Com2uS Corporation's AX HUB, among other figures from the domestic gaming industry, participated as speakers.

The event drew attention as YouTuber Kim Gye-ran participated as both a hackathon participant and a host. She unveiled “Only Squat,” a fitness game that recognizes users’ movements via a webcam.

“I started this because I wanted to create a game that allows people to exercise naturally,” she said. “I chose the ‘squat’ as the core exercise because it’s simple and effective, and its movements can be easily detected by a webcam.”