[Different Nationalities, One Passion] “It Is Important to Read the Cultural Contexts of Each Nation” _SGP Ploss Daniel 2026-07-29

At Smilegate, members with diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds work together. Respect different experiences and perspectives, freely exchange opinions, and collaborate based on each person’s expertise. This borderless organizational culture provides diverse perspectives on work and generates meaningful outcomes. At Smilegate Newsroom, we introduce, over two installments, the stories of foreign members of different nationalities and cultures who passionately come together and create synergy.

Q. Please introduce yourself focusing on your responsibilities.

Hello. I’m Ploss Daniel, working in the SGP Content Marketing Team. She oversees the operation of the global game platform STOVE’s creator program and leads collaborative projects with global influencer. Based on the Discord community, we communicate with global game creators and carry out marketing.

Q. At the 2026 Anime Expo held recently in Los Angeles, USA, you met global users in person with “Chaos Zero: Nightmare” and “Future City: The Invisible Future.” What did you feel at the scene?

I realized that meeting users face-to-face in the field is definitely a different experience from checking users’ reactions in online communities. Seeing the users who came to the booth dressed up as characters made me truly feel their affection. We were also able to hear users’ opinions about the game directly on site. I believe these kinds of opinions become an important asset for planning and improving content.

Q. When you joined the company, you were assigned localization duties. After that, I joined the content marketing team. I’m curious about what prompted it.

When I joined Smilegate, I was on the localization team handling the German translation of Epic Seven. My job was to polish game content so it would feel natural to users across different cultures. But as AI-powered translation technology advanced, I started thinking seriously about my own role. That pushed me to think about preparing for the future, and that's when I learned there was a role localizing marketing content. It involved planning content and communicating with global creators, and I found it genuinely interesting. Later, an opportunity came up to take on creator program work, and I joined the Content Marketing team.

Q. What do you see as your team's unique strength within Content Marketing?

It's a culture of asking "how can we make this work" whenever a new idea comes up. In the course of work, new attempts are often blocked by budget, schedule, or policy constraints. When that happens, instead of drawing a hard line and saying "no," our team digs in together to figure out how to work around it and make the idea happen. Thanks to our horizontal, flexible way of communicating, anyone can freely offer input even outside their own area of responsibility. I think that's one of the team's biggest strengths and the source of our execution power.

Q. How has this open communication culture affected your own work? 

Sometimes wordplay or humor that lands well with Korean users becomes completely meaningless—or even gets misunderstood—when translated literally for overseas users. Through candid conversations within the team, I once suggested, "This joke doesn't fit the global sensibility, so let's adapt it using a meme that's already resonating overseas." That change led to an explosive response and engagement from the global audience. It was a case where open discussion and adjustment became the key to maximizing results.

Q. As a global marketer, what expertise do you consider most important?

The ability to read cultural context by country. Since each country has a different historical background and different user tendencies, when planning global content you always have to ask first: "How will local users perceive this message?" In Germany, for instance, certain expressions can be historically sensitive—the combination of the letters "SS" has to be handled with extreme care, since it can evoke associations with the Nazi SS.

The way people enjoy content also varies by region. Korean users tend to immerse themselves strongly in story and worldbuilding, while overseas users often prioritize the fun of gameplay itself. Attending Anime Expo let me see this difference firsthand and reaffirmed just how much culture varies from country to country.

Q. Could you share an example where your expertise directly led to a result?

There was an incident where an unexpected pricing error occurred for an Epic Seven package on the North American App Store. It happened around 3 a.m. North American time. I was monitoring the global creator-only Discord channel I'd built up over time, and I caught the issue in real time. I immediately briefed the creators on the situation and activated an emergency hotline, working with the relevant internal teams to contain and resolve the risk within a few hours. It was a moment where the expertise I'd built—maintaining a round-the-clock hotline with global creators across time zones—really paid off.

Q. You must have had many achievements over the years. Is there one that stands out? 

The achievement I'm proudest of is growing our global STOVE creator program from around 100 creators when I joined to over 1,000 today—more than a tenfold increase. I see creators as partners who bring us the closest, most direct voice of our users. Even across time zones, we built trust by communicating quickly through Discord, and that relationship has become one of the most valuable assets in running the program.

When something in the game needs improvement, creators often reach out with honest, constructive feedback—things like "could you take a look at this?" We actively share that feedback internally, and it's made a real, tangible difference in improving both our content and the program itself.

Q. What goals would you like to achieve at Smilegate going forward?

I want to keep expanding our global creator community and build a bigger stage where more creators can grow alongside Smilegate. I hope to help Smilegate become known among global users as a game company that genuinely listens to its users and actively engages with them. I'd also like to keep creating more opportunities to meet users directly—not just online, but offline as well—to broaden our connection with fans around the world.

Q. For prospective employees from diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds who want to grow together, how would you describe Smilegate as a company?

Smilegate is a company that respects individual expertise and capability first, ahead of nationality or background. Working at a Korean company as a foreign employee, there are inevitably moments where you feel unfamiliar with certain cultural norms or communication styles. But in the six years I've worked at Smilegate, I've never once felt that my opinion was dismissed because I'm a foreigner. If anything, my colleagues would ask for my perspective on global user tendencies or overseas culture first, and we'd work together to find the answer.

Nationality and language may differ, but in the end, I believe everyone shares the same passion: a love of games and a desire to create better experiences. A culture where people respect each other's expertise and naturally collaborate toward the same goal—I think that's one of Smilegate's core strengths.