Due to coronavirus setback, a game festival kicked off Wednesday in virtual space for the first time in South Korea.

According to industry sources, “2020 Indie Craft K-Game Festival” will be held for five days until Sunday in a virtual space created by a game engine as holding the event offline was unviable due to concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak.

Visitors can enter the virtual festival after creating their own 3D avatars. Then, they can visit booths, have conversations with other participants and exchange contacts by simply pressing “V” key on the keyboard.

Sponsored by big names including Nexon, NCSoft, Netmarble, Com2us, Naver Cloud Platform and Unity, the festival is held in the biggest scale since its launch in 2017.

The festival showcases a total of 60 games -- 40 Korean games, 10 foreign games and best 10 games in 2017-2019.

The festival is organized by Seongnam City and run by Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency and Korea Mobile Game Association.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)