The “Don’t Jinx It” Team Behind Dave the Diver Sold 10 Million Copies

Featured photo: A scuba diver meets a pufferfish off Samaesan Island, Thailand: the daytime half of Dave the Diver’s dive-by-day, sushi-by-night loop. Photo: Ryland.cairns, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Mintrocket, the studio behind Dave the Diver, the first Korean single-player packaged game to sell 10 million copies, never once planned for success. Its company motto translates to “Don’t jinx it,” its teams are still 20 to 30 people each, and when sales passed 10 million, what CEO Jaeho Hwang handed his staff wasn’t an expansion plan. It was a card made of gold (This Is Game interview, November 2, 2026). It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nexon, and it works in exactly the opposite way from a big company.

Nobody planned for 10 million

Seolrebal is Korean slang for getting excited and bragging about something before it has actually happened, a bit like counting your chickens before they hatch. Mintrocket’s motto, seolrebal-pilpae, means “count your chickens and you’re sure to lose.” In English: don’t jinx it. “If you design for ‘we’re going to sell 10 million,’ you end up moving to fit that number, and you’re left with surprisingly little,” Hwang said. “Something like a three-year business plan is the hardest thing for me” (This Is Game).

The numbers prove there was no plan. In the game, you dive into the sea to catch fish by day and serve them at a sushi bar by night. It came out in Steam Early Access in October 2022 and launched in full on June 28, 2023 (Steam). It sold a million copies in ten days (PC Gamer), and on September 9, 2026, the studio announced 10 million copies across all platforms (ZDNet Korea). Yet Hwang said, “Even at the start of this year, I didn’t know we’d pass 10 million.” What pushed this year’s sales were the Chinese mobile version released in February (about a million copies by June) and the “In the Jungle” DLC released in June (This Is Game).

A game a 200-person company couldn’t have made

In 2022, Mintrocket was a small unit inside Nexon with about 30 developers. Dave the Diver was made by a team about a third the size usually put on a game of that scale, an unusual number in an industry where a single big title can take 100 to as many as 300 people (Korea JoongAng Daily, November 26, 2022). The result was a Metacritic score of 90 (Steam, checked November 6).

Since spinning off as an independent company in November 2024, it has stayed almost the same size. The studio and Nexon originally expected a headcount of over 100, but today the whole company is “a little under 70,” with three teams, Dave, Bancho and Godzilla, each kept at 20 to 30 people. Everyone up to the CEO is in the same chat channels, so things get seen and fixed right away, without reports. Hwang’s explanation is short: “If we were a 200-person organization, I don’t think we could do this kind of thing. You have to take the safe road” (This Is Game).

That’s the same instinct behind the Korean alarm app that wakes the world without taking a cent of investment: stay small enough to keep making your own calls.

They don’t use a winning formula twice

What “this kind of thing” means shows up in the choices made after 10 million. The first big paid DLC, “In the Jungle,” didn’t just add more of the main game. It moved the stage to the jungle and swapped saltwater fish for freshwater fish. Freshwater fish don’t make good sushi, so they get grilled instead, and time in the jungle village runs in real time. When the team caught itself drifting into rebuilding familiar systems, it cut those parts and made them again (This Is Game).

They shot the promo for their pixel-art game in live action. After two months of reaching out, they finally got an answer from The Asylum, the American studio famous for low-budget B movies, and Hwang and the art director went to a 3 a.m. audition to make sure the actor’s hair and beard matched Bancho, the sushi master. The result is a short film listed on IMDb as “Dave the Diver: In the Jungle” (2026).

China went the same way. To get the game license required to sell there, the only things they changed were the blood when you shoot a fish, and the beer (This Is Game). In October, it became the first Nexon game to receive a Chinese console (PS5) license as well (iNews24, October 13). It’s the same market where a Korean solo developer’s game was cloned and sold before he could launch it.

The next goal can be 2 million

Ten million copies came with pressure. “In the past, if a game failed, I was the only one embarrassed. Now the organization is embarrassed,” Hwang said. If the next title sells 2 million, he would call it a success, but outsiders would say, “It sold worse than the last one.” Meeting that bar would mean spending more money, and that would shake the way the studio makes games. So Mintrocket’s answer for now is: “As long as we eat well and live well among ourselves, 2 million is plenty” (This Is Game).

Next in line are “Bancho the Chef,” a standalone prequel starring Bancho, and “Godzilla Defense Force: X,” a new mobile game aimed at early 2027. Not “Dave the Diver 2.” They picked cooking, Hwang said, because everyone loves it but few games about it have ever been big hits (This Is Game).

The money went to the staff first

Mintrocket’s rule on rewards is “If we earn it, we give it back.” When it went independent, it set aside part of Dave the Diver’s profits so bonuses would reach people on the Godzilla team, who hadn’t shipped a game yet, and people who support the organization regardless of sales. Last year every employee got a handheld gaming PC, and when sales passed 10 million, the studio made cards out of gold and handed them out (This Is Game).

Hwang said a number is engraved on the back of each card. “Because you’re not supposed to sell it anywhere.” It’s the one thing the team that sold 10 million copies made sure could never be sold.

Where to play: Dave the Diver on Steam ($19.99 in the U.S., checked November 6, 2026).

Sources

• This Is Game, November 2, 2026: “Mintrocket’s past, present and future, two years after going independent” (Korean)
• ZDNet Korea, September 9, 2026: 10 million copies, Push Square, September 2026
• Korea JoongAng Daily, November 26, 2022
• PC Gamer: a million copies in 10 days
• iNews24, October 13, 2026: PS5 license in China
• Dave the Diver on Steam (release date, Metacritic 90, checked November 6, 2026)
• IMDb: Dave the Diver: In the Jungle (2026 short)