Krafton's Q3 Profit Drops 35% as PC Revenue Cools After Subnautica 2
Revenue still grows 11.6% to 971.4 billion won, but costs climb 43%; Krafton expects a strong Q4.
After a record second quarter, Krafton came back to earth. Third-quarter revenue rose 11.6% to 971.4 billion won, but operating profit fell 35.5% to 225 billion won as operating expenses climbed 43% to 746.4 billion won.
Why PC revenue fell
PC game revenue dropped to 238.9 billion won from 560.4 billion won. The company pointed to a quarter with little paid PUBG PC content and the fading launch boost from Subnautica 2, which had passed 5 million sales within 22 days of launch earlier in the year.
Costs: ADK, marketing, gamescom
Spending rose on underperformance at ADK Holdings, the Japanese ad and animation company Krafton bought last year, plus marketing and its gamescom presence in August. Krafton said ADK's animation side is doing better than expected while advertising struggles.
The AI bet and Q4
CEO Kim Chang-han said Krafton's AI-for-games capability is "among the best in Korea"; the company is building its own language model, Raon-1 Mini. On the call Krafton said PC traffic has recovered and it expects a strong fourth quarter. See Krafton's five-game booth in our G-STAR 2026 preview.
Sources: The Korea Times; Q2 context via Press The Game.