Microdramas and Short Form Media Take Center Stage at Crisp-Organized Content Conference in Seoul
The future couldn’t look more vertical than from the 76th floor of the Lotte Tower, the sixth tallest building in the world, where microdrama key stakeholders attended the conference Future Is Vertical: The Global Rise of Short Form Media. The splashy location was aptly chosen by the event’s organizer, the short-form scripted video content company Crisp, which means to shape the next phase of an industry racing toward $26 billion in global revenues by 2030.
One of the key talking points of the conference was the ways in which games and web novels have shaped short form drama. Coming from China, the birthplace and leading market of the microdrama industry, Chen Bo, CEO of Neorigin, and Dr. Zou Jianfeng, Chairman of MoboReels, discussed the origin story of the fast-rising trend.
“There are many similarities between the game and the short-form production industry,” said Chen. “For example, our micro-drama team at NeoOrigin is actually a spin-off from the game publishing team. We use the same methodologies, business models, and publishing tools, like Meta or Google. But in terms of creation, short-form dramas and games are quite different. Game creation is more complex and costly. It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce and takes several years to create. Whereas for short form drama, right now, it takes one month in China, maybe two in Korea, and it costs less than $100,000.”
RELATED CONTENT: Inside the $26 Billion Global Vertical TV Revolution
Like Chen, Dr. Zou thinks that most obstacles boil down to budget costs: “I think all web-novels can be turned into short-scripted formats. All you need is a good narrative. If it’s good, it will have climaxes, and we can turn that into a short drama. I view cost as the main barrier. If a story is too complex, the price will go up, and it will be hard to turn it into a short-scripted format.
But in the business of emotion, no success exists without an audience. The perspective of a global market was maybe the most engaging for the micro-drama operators, platforms, content creators, and technology providers who came from America, Europe, and Asia to attend the summit in Seoul, South Korea.
“China, the US, and Japan are the biggest revenue markets, but there’s big potential elsewhere,” summarised Cassandra Yang, CEO of RisingJoy, during the Short Form Going Global panel. “India has seen a huge growth this year. It went from zero to the biggest growth market of independent micro-drama apps since September 2024. Thailand and Indonesia have emerged, with Indonesia becoming the second-largest download market after India. We’re also looking at Turkey, Kazakhstan, Mongolia… Everywhere, micro-drama is booming.”
For Martin Moszkowicz, seasoned German Film producer and ex-chairman of Constantin Film, these global opportunities are no different from the movie or TV series industries: “In the creative industries, we constantly recreate the market. If we engage the viewer emotionally, then we’re successful. The market will be as big as we’re good.”
Hollywood didn’t believe in the short-form phenomenon when it initially came out of China. Quibi wasn’t successful, and after discussing with various industry experts, Moszkowicz believes it was due to two main factors: the business model was subscription-based, and the content produced was extremely expensive. “In every part of our business, budget control is crucial. There’s something we say in this line of work: “There is no better business than a low budget”. Short form is on the right track, since budgets are extremely small. But scalability isn’t going to be the key to success. IP is going to be. There are going to be hundreds of series that are going to flop in the market. Who gets the genius creators is what’s going to be important. People will watch what gives them emotions, not necessarily the best produced or most expensive.”
RELATED CONTENT: Who’s Who in Microdramas? The Power Players Reshaping Short Form Entertainment
The statement has Cassandra Yang nodding vigorously: “Companies I work with run micro-drama apps with a game-industry methodology for user acquisition. But all of them ask me how to improve the retention rate. I tell them that if you don’t have good content, your retention rate will drop in 7 days.”
To Ronan Wong, the COO of AR Asia Productions, experimenting with new ways to tell stories is exactly what makes micro-dramas such an exciting field to be in: “We’re just starting, so the content is pretty limited for now, which means the audience is also pretty limited. There is so much content we haven’t explored. Unscripted content, horror genre, new formats that might appeal to GenZ…” The industry veteran sees promise, especially in the recent massive adoption of mobile in countries like Indonesia, whose penetration rate rose to around 90% post-COVID. “I think we underestimate the audiences who only acquired a mobile in the last few years. Micro-drama download rates are already at 7 to 8 million in Indonesia, and we’re seeing this trend happen in a few countries. The growth is there, but we don’t have enough new content, enough new channels to reach them. I think new options will emerge in the next few months.”
Moszkowicz predicts traditional streamers like Netflix won’t jump headfirst into the short-scripted content pool because of their subscription-based model, but Hollywood Studios will get into the business sooner or later. “Their initial snobbish attitude towards the format has changed over the last couple of years. Netflix, Apple, and other OTTs have suddenly become so huge without the studio – I’m sure they’ve been thinking: “Ok, I won’t lose another opportunity”. I think Hollywood will follow, because where the audience goes, the studios go.”
In the meantime, the absence of Hollywood seems to be a big draw for indie artists in search of new mediums to experiment with. “Within traditional Hollywood structure, there’s a lot of politics and bureaucracy that make it hard for independent creators to navigate,” notes Emily Yang, Emmy-awarded creator of the animated micro-drama White Rabbit and co-founder of Shibuya studio, during The Future is Empowering Creators with Short Form Animation panel. “I’m very optimistic that the short form drama market will be a more vertical place – figuratively and literally – for the artists to express themselves.”
Her White Rabbit co-creator and Shibuya co-founder, Maciej Kuciara, finds micro-drama to be a unique new way to reduce the burdens that come with animation as a medium: “Historically, animation had been a very complex thing to pull off. Going vertical means going much shorter. By telling mini-stories, it’s much easier. You don’t need to know everything, it allows creators to be more loose, more creative with the medium, and cut the cost.”
Their production, White Rabbit, is not only experimental in vertical format but also in how it interacts with the audience as they get to greenlight the next episodes. “The writing was the hardest part for us to do,” adds Kuciara. “I think just by virtue of the voting system, that we had a structure. But we had to make sure that every single episode we were writing made sense…” The micro-drama tells the story of Mirai, a girl unaware of her true nature as an AI, a topic that resonated with the conference as the new technology crept up in every panel discussion.
Mostly, the outlook on its future applications was optimistic, with the hope that AI will boost production and lower its cost for the industry as a whole.
“I think we can reduce the micro-drama production budget with AI,” said Minhong Lee, co-founder of Carpenstreet. “But it’s like with airplanes. There are very high-tech models now, but the pilot is still essential. AI is important, but who is using the AI is maybe more important. With Lila (Lee, Carpenstream’s Business Director), we have been working in the webtoon industry for many years and we learned that even though AI can make many things fast, the audience can recognise very quickly if the characters or the setting are not interesting. In Korean and Japanese audiences, they especially don’t like it if it mimics another artist’s style. AI is important, but it can’t do everything. We need to get better pilots, and we need to figure out how and where we can use it in better ways.”
For Emily Yang, the polarisation among artists misses the point, whether it’s out of fear of losing a career, moral and ethical dilemmas, or concern with the quality of AI-produced content. “It’s just a tool to render ideas. You give two directors the same camera, one can tell an amazing story, and another will tell a very lazy one. The story matters, not the technology. The audience’s taste will change ultimately. A lot of people don’t realise when there’s AI or not in a project, and they don’t need to. It’s not what matters.”
One of the key talking points of the conference was the ways in which games and web novels have shaped short form drama. Coming from China, the birthplace and leading market of the microdrama industry, Chen Bo, CEO of Neorigin, and Dr. Zou Jianfeng, Chairman of MoboReels, discussed the origin story of the fast-rising trend.
“There are many similarities between the game and the short-form production industry,” said Chen. “For example, our micro-drama team at NeoOrigin is actually a spin-off from the game publishing team. We use the same methodologies, business models, and publishing tools, like Meta or Google. But in terms of creation, short-form dramas and games are quite different. Game creation is more complex and costly. It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce and takes several years to create. Whereas for short form drama, right now, it takes one month in China, maybe two in Korea, and it costs less than $100,000.”
RELATED CONTENT: Inside the $26 Billion Global Vertical TV Revolution
Like Chen, Dr. Zou thinks that most obstacles boil down to budget costs: “I think all web-novels can be turned into short-scripted formats. All you need is a good narrative. If it’s good, it will have climaxes, and we can turn that into a short drama. I view cost as the main barrier. If a story is too complex, the price will go up, and it will be hard to turn it into a short-scripted format.
But in the business of emotion, no success exists without an audience. The perspective of a global market was maybe the most engaging for the micro-drama operators, platforms, content creators, and technology providers who came from America, Europe, and Asia to attend the summit in Seoul, South Korea.
“China, the US, and Japan are the biggest revenue markets, but there’s big potential elsewhere,” summarised Cassandra Yang, CEO of RisingJoy, during the Short Form Going Global panel. “India has seen a huge growth this year. It went from zero to the biggest growth market of independent micro-drama apps since September 2024. Thailand and Indonesia have emerged, with Indonesia becoming the second-largest download market after India. We’re also looking at Turkey, Kazakhstan, Mongolia… Everywhere, micro-drama is booming.”
For Martin Moszkowicz, seasoned German Film producer and ex-chairman of Constantin Film, these global opportunities are no different from the movie or TV series industries: “In the creative industries, we constantly recreate the market. If we engage the viewer emotionally, then we’re successful. The market will be as big as we’re good.”
Hollywood didn’t believe in the short-form phenomenon when it initially came out of China. Quibi wasn’t successful, and after discussing with various industry experts, Moszkowicz believes it was due to two main factors: the business model was subscription-based, and the content produced was extremely expensive. “In every part of our business, budget control is crucial. There’s something we say in this line of work: “There is no better business than a low budget”. Short form is on the right track, since budgets are extremely small. But scalability isn’t going to be the key to success. IP is going to be. There are going to be hundreds of series that are going to flop in the market. Who gets the genius creators is what’s going to be important. People will watch what gives them emotions, not necessarily the best produced or most expensive.”
RELATED CONTENT: Who’s Who in Microdramas? The Power Players Reshaping Short Form Entertainment
The statement has Cassandra Yang nodding vigorously: “Companies I work with run micro-drama apps with a game-industry methodology for user acquisition. But all of them ask me how to improve the retention rate. I tell them that if you don’t have good content, your retention rate will drop in 7 days.”
To Ronan Wong, the COO of AR Asia Productions, experimenting with new ways to tell stories is exactly what makes micro-dramas such an exciting field to be in: “We’re just starting, so the content is pretty limited for now, which means the audience is also pretty limited. There is so much content we haven’t explored. Unscripted content, horror genre, new formats that might appeal to GenZ…” The industry veteran sees promise, especially in the recent massive adoption of mobile in countries like Indonesia, whose penetration rate rose to around 90% post-COVID. “I think we underestimate the audiences who only acquired a mobile in the last few years. Micro-drama download rates are already at 7 to 8 million in Indonesia, and we’re seeing this trend happen in a few countries. The growth is there, but we don’t have enough new content, enough new channels to reach them. I think new options will emerge in the next few months.”
Moszkowicz predicts traditional streamers like Netflix won’t jump headfirst into the short-scripted content pool because of their subscription-based model, but Hollywood Studios will get into the business sooner or later. “Their initial snobbish attitude towards the format has changed over the last couple of years. Netflix, Apple, and other OTTs have suddenly become so huge without the studio – I’m sure they’ve been thinking: “Ok, I won’t lose another opportunity”. I think Hollywood will follow, because where the audience goes, the studios go.”
In the meantime, the absence of Hollywood seems to be a big draw for indie artists in search of new mediums to experiment with. “Within traditional Hollywood structure, there’s a lot of politics and bureaucracy that make it hard for independent creators to navigate,” notes Emily Yang, Emmy-awarded creator of the animated micro-drama White Rabbit and co-founder of Shibuya studio, during The Future is Empowering Creators with Short Form Animation panel. “I’m very optimistic that the short form drama market will be a more vertical place – figuratively and literally – for the artists to express themselves.”
Her White Rabbit co-creator and Shibuya co-founder, Maciej Kuciara, finds micro-drama to be a unique new way to reduce the burdens that come with animation as a medium: “Historically, animation had been a very complex thing to pull off. Going vertical means going much shorter. By telling mini-stories, it’s much easier. You don’t need to know everything, it allows creators to be more loose, more creative with the medium, and cut the cost.”
Their production, White Rabbit, is not only experimental in vertical format but also in how it interacts with the audience as they get to greenlight the next episodes. “The writing was the hardest part for us to do,” adds Kuciara. “I think just by virtue of the voting system, that we had a structure. But we had to make sure that every single episode we were writing made sense…” The micro-drama tells the story of Mirai, a girl unaware of her true nature as an AI, a topic that resonated with the conference as the new technology crept up in every panel discussion.
Mostly, the outlook on its future applications was optimistic, with the hope that AI will boost production and lower its cost for the industry as a whole.
“I think we can reduce the micro-drama production budget with AI,” said Minhong Lee, co-founder of Carpenstreet. “But it’s like with airplanes. There are very high-tech models now, but the pilot is still essential. AI is important, but who is using the AI is maybe more important. With Lila (Lee, Carpenstream’s Business Director), we have been working in the webtoon industry for many years and we learned that even though AI can make many things fast, the audience can recognise very quickly if the characters or the setting are not interesting. In Korean and Japanese audiences, they especially don’t like it if it mimics another artist’s style. AI is important, but it can’t do everything. We need to get better pilots, and we need to figure out how and where we can use it in better ways.”
For Emily Yang, the polarisation among artists misses the point, whether it’s out of fear of losing a career, moral and ethical dilemmas, or concern with the quality of AI-produced content. “It’s just a tool to render ideas. You give two directors the same camera, one can tell an amazing story, and another will tell a very lazy one. The story matters, not the technology. The audience’s taste will change ultimately. A lot of people don’t realise when there’s AI or not in a project, and they don’t need to. It’s not what matters.”