ONE Store Korea in 2026: instant play, D2C and a global push for publishers

Direct answer — What did ONE Store change in 2026, and should a global publisher care? In 2026 Korea’s ONE Store turned from a download store into what it calls an “All-in-One Store”: a no-install mini-game service (ONE Play) stocked with Tencent’s WeChat mini-games, a D2C web shop for in-game items, and, since 31 August, a global store in 122 countries. It also changed hands: game-platform company NEXUS agreed to buy control in June and now holds 95.88%. For a global publisher, ONE Store remains first a Korean Android channel worth a dual listing; the instant-play and web-shop layers are worth testing, and the global store is still too new to plan around.

One correction first, because the brief this piece started from had it wrong. The version circulating in our pipeline said ONE Store “launched mini-games and instant play in May 2026” and was “expanding to Taiwan and the US”. The Tencent partnership is real. The rest is either late or out of date: May was the target, not the launch; Taiwan has been live (in beta) since 2024; and the US, described as a beta in April, now sits inside a 122-country launch under a new owner. Here is what the record actually shows as of October 2026.

What did ONE Store actually launch in 2026?

Two products, announced together at the company’s 10th-anniversary press conference in Seoul on 30 April 2026.

ONE Play (announced as “ONE Play Games”) runs games inside the ONE Store app without a separate install. ONE Store’s definition matters for publishers: CEO Park Tae-young described a mini-game not as short content but as “a game service that provides a complete experience from login to payment”, with in-app payment included. Content comes from a partnership with Tencent. ONE Store said Tencent holds around 20,000 titles through WeChat mini-games (the size of Tencent’s ecosystem, not of the ONE Play catalogue), and that it will bring top-grossing and top-traffic titles to Korea in sequence, selectively rather than wholesale. Those titles go through the same Game Rating and Administration Committee classification as any other mobile game in Korea.

The timeline slipped. In April, ONE Store said it would launch ONE Play officially in May after a pilot. The full launch was announced on 20 July 2026, with Raising Gladiator, an equipment-driven RPG that, per Seoul Economic Daily, topped China’s WeChat mini-game sales chart after release. At the 31 August global launch, ONE Store also said a separate “AI Games” section for AI-made games would open to global users in September.

ONE Web Shop was the D2C half: a web checkout for in-game items, run by the store itself. The April terms were an 8% fee covering payment-gateway fees and app distribution, no separate build per market (it reuses the existing ONE Store in-app payment integration), and around 40 titles in talks. ONE Store pitched it as cheaper than other web shops, which it said typically charge 10-15%.

Who owns ONE Store now, and why does it matter?

ONE Store marked its 10th anniversary in 2026, with Korean telecom and internet groups among its shareholders. On 18 June 2026, the board of NEXUS, led by CEO Jang Hyun-guk, approved buying an 89.03% stake for approximately ₩62.6 billion from SK Square, Naver, Steel Number One First and KRAFTON. In September it secured the KT and LG Uplus holdings, reaching 95.88%, and a share exchange for the remainder takes effect on 8 December 2026.

The owner changes the strategy. At the acquisition NEXUS said it would turn ONE Store, installed on over 38 million devices in Korea, into a “Game Hub”, and make the global version a Web3 game store with wallets, stablecoins and other on-chain features. The core business structure and cooperation arrangements in Korea were to stay unchanged.

That plan arrived on 31 August 2026 in two pieces:

• ONE Store Global launched in 122 countries, including North America, Latin America and Asia, with more than 1,000 pieces of content. Its stated difference is policy: apps that integrate crypto assets or tokens go through the same review standards as other content, with no restrictions on blockchain or wallet type. A developer can ship one global build to all 122 countries.
• ONE Shop replaced ONE Web Shop by merging it with NEXUS’s CROSS Shop. It now covers seven countries: Korea plus the US, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The fee is 5% excluding payment-gateway fees. That is a different basis from the April 8% (which included gateway fees), so do not compare the two numbers directly; ask for the all-in rate per country.

Read the global store for what it is today: new, positioned around AI and blockchain games, and without published traction data. If your catalogue is conventional free-to-play, the Korean store and the D2C layer are where the evidence is. If you want a second opinion on where ONE Store sits in your channel plan, that is the kind of question our distribution team works through with studios.

What does ONE Store cost a publisher?

ONE Store’s own February 2026 release sets out the fee grid for its Korean app market:

Route	Fee	Condition (per ONE Store)
ONE Store billing, standard	20%	Default rate since the 2018 cut from 30%
ONE Store billing, small developers	10%	Monthly transaction value of $5,000 or less; permanent since 2 February 2026
Developer’s own payment system	5%	Allowed since 2018
ONE Shop (D2C web checkout)	5% + gateway fees	Seven countries, since 31 August 2026

Two pieces of Korean context explain why these numbers exist. First, the law: on 31 August 2021, South Korea’s National Assembly passed the amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act known as the “Anti-Google law”, which stops app market operators from forcing developers onto their own in-app billing. ONE Store has used low fees and open payment routes as its competitive position since before that law. Second, the comparison is moving. Google’s new Play service-fee structure, already live in the EEA, UK and US, is scheduled to reach South Korea on 31 December 2026. Recheck your Korean margin comparison after that date rather than relying on today’s Play rates.

Is ONE Store worth listing on at all? Its own data says yes for some genres. ONE Store reports, using IGAWorks’ Mobile Index, a 12.6% share of game transaction value across Korea’s three app markets (Google Play, App Store, ONE Store) from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2025, against about 12.3% for Apple’s App Store. That makes it second in Korea by that measure. More useful for a publisher: among the top 50 grossing games listed on both Google Play and ONE Store in the first half of 2025, ONE Store says its share of transaction value between the two stores was 49.2%. These are self-reported figures for dual-listed titles. They show that players of mid-core genres will pay on ONE Store when the game is there. They do not say what a new title will earn.

How does a global publisher get onto ONE Store?

Treat it as three separate decisions, because they now carry different terms.

1. The Korean app market. This is the proven channel. You register through the ONE Store Developer Center, integrate the ONE Store IAP SDK, and get the game rated for Korea. Expect the commercial upside from ONE Store’s discount and points promotions, which its own release credits for the paying audience. Localisation, Korean customer support and live-ops timing matter more here than the store integration itself.
2. ONE Shop for D2C. If your game is already on ONE Store, ONE Shop reuses the same in-app payment integration. That makes it the cheapest way to test a web checkout in Korea without building your own, and now a possible route in the US, Japan, Taiwan and three Southeast Asian markets. Our web shop and live-ops playbook covers what to measure before you move spend to the web.
3. ONE Play for instant play. Today the catalogue is curated through the Tencent partnership, and we found no published submission path for outside studios. If you already ship a WeChat mini-game build, that is your way in. If you do not, our piece on instant games as a distribution layer explains what a no-install build costs to maintain.

On the US: Digital Turbine announced on 30 October 2024 that it was acquiring ONE Store International, ONE Store’s global-expansion subsidiary, to bring the store to North America, the EU and LATAM, and its ONE Store US documentation still describes a US market that only distributes official Android apps. In April 2026 ONE Store’s CEO said the company was “conducting beta tests in the U.S.” How that track relates to ONE Store Global is not public. Before you sign anything outside Korea, ask which entity contracts with you, who settles, and in which currency.

Where does ONE Store fit in a multi-store plan?

Taiwan shows the international playbook. ONE Store launched Enjoy Store there with local publisher Happytuk, in beta since June 2024, the first step in what we described as its regional expansion in our Southeast Asia distribution playbook. In April 2026 the CEO said ONE Store expects to turn a profit in 2027 and called mini-games and web shops high-leverage, low-investment businesses.

For a publisher, that gives a clear order of priority:

• Korea first. If Korea is a priority market for your game, a ONE Store build sits next to Google Play, not instead of it. RPG, simulation, strategy and sports titles have the strongest case on ONE Store’s own genre data.
• D2C second. Test ONE Shop where you already have players, and compare its all-in cost against your own web shop provider per country.
• Instant play and the global store last. Watch ONE Play’s catalogue to see whether non-Tencent titles appear, and wait for ONE Store Global to publish traction numbers before giving it a build of its own.

Treat each of these as one line in a portfolio, scored the same way as every other channel; our multi-channel distribution framework sets out that scoring.

FAQ

Did ONE Store launch instant play in May 2026?

No. ONE Store announced ONE Play on 30 April 2026 and said it would launch in May after a pilot. The full launch was announced on 20 July 2026 with the WeChat mini-game hit Raising Gladiator, sourced through its partnership with Tencent.

Who owns ONE Store?

NEXUS, led by Jang Hyun-guk. Its board approved buying an 89.03% stake from SK Square, Naver and other shareholders in June 2026; it reached 95.88% in September after securing the KT and LG Uplus stakes, and plans to own 100% through a share exchange effective 8 December 2026.

What commission does ONE Store charge developers?

On its Korean app market, ONE Store’s standard fee is 20%, cut to 10% for developers with monthly transaction value of $5,000 or less, and 5% when the developer uses its own payment system. Its ONE Shop web checkout charges 5% excluding payment-gateway fees.

Is ONE Store available outside Korea?

Yes. ONE Store Global launched on 31 August 2026 in 122 countries, and ONE Shop now covers seven countries including the US, Japan and Taiwan. The global store leans on AI and blockchain games and has not yet published usage data.

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If you are deciding whether a Korean build, a ONE Shop test or a mini-game port belongs in your 2027 plan, talk to our distribution team. Early-stage studios can also apply to the Founding Developer Program.