KRAFTON is taking the lead in nurturing future digital talent, having successfully concluded the final showcase for BETTER GROUND High School, a program designed to enhance the game development capabilities of youth around the world.
KRAFTON (CEO Changhan Kim) announced on September 21 that it successfully held the 2026 BETTER GROUND Final showcase on September 18 at PUBG Seongsu in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, in partnership with youth education NGO JA Korea (Chairman Lee Eun-hyung). A total of 66 students from 17 teams—12 teams selected from South Korea and 5 teams from various Asian countries—participated in the event to showcase their projects. Through booth demonstrations and stage presentations at the venue, the students exhibited entries spanning various genres—including puzzle, action, simulation, educational, and horror—and explained their design intentions. They also had time to connect by testing other teams' projects firsthand and sharing the challenges faced during development along with the know-how used to overcome them.
The program kicked off in April this year with "Play," an online exploration phase in which around 1,000 youth from six countries participated. Students who passed the design proposal review moved on to the "Day" phase, where they received tailored lectures and intensive mentoring on game development from KRAFTON employees, before maximizing the polish of their projects through "Up," a follow-up online mentoring process lasting three months. Marking its fourth session this year since its launch in 2023, BETTER GROUND High School has seen a total of 561 high school students participate, with a remarkable 479 students completing the program to date.
In addition to supporting high school students, KRAFTON operates BETTER GROUND University in collaboration with the non-profit organization JUMP to help university students build practical capabilities. JA Korea is leading efforts to connect with partner organizations abroad so that youth from various countries can participate in the program. KRAFTON employees volunteer as mentors for both programs, offering rich industry experience and tailored coaching. Kim Tae-ryun, Head of the Corporate Relations Dept. at KRAFTON, said, "BETTER GROUND High School is a program where high school students from around the world take on the challenge of completing a game together and discover their potential," adding, "We will continue our support so that students can build technical capabilities alongside social skills such as collaboration, communication, and problem-solving through the process of making games, growing into future digital talent."
