Nexon Korea researchers from the Applied Analytics Lab in the company’s AI division won the Best Paper Award at ICTAI 2026, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conference, the company said on the 9th. The award was presented at the conference held in Florida from the 2nd to the 4th of this month. ICTAI, now in its 38th year, spans topics from AI theory to industrial applications; the best paper award is given to only one presented paper.
Nexon study: when AI is welcomed or rejected in games
The winning paper, titled “When Is AI in Games Welcomed and When Is It Rejected,” analyzed about 19.37 million user reviews on Steam to examine how players perceive and respond to AI in games. The authors — Ji Woo-seok (first author), Jung Yeon-woo (second author), Hwang Sang-ho and Ryu Sung-il — found that players reacted positively when AI acted as a “collaborator” that helped them play or when it blended naturally into the game. Negative reactions appeared when AI remained a peripheral element or when players felt they could not control it. The paper concludes that acceptance depends not on the mere presence of AI but on the role players assign to it and how they experience it in-game.
Pre-release diagnostic system and development plans
Drawing on those findings, Nexon built a diagnostic system to check player reactions to in-game AI features before release: developers or test participants use an AI feature and then complete a survey, giving the company an at-a-glance view of what works and what needs improvement. Nexon plans to extend the screening to AI functions still at the planning stage to identify and fix elements players might find off-putting from the earliest phase of development.
“This award matters because research that began with problems on the industrial front line has been recognized for its value on an international academic stage,” said Ryu Sung-il, who heads the Applied Analytics Lab. “We will continue to solve problems in the industry through research based on data and AI.”
