Since 2008, PM Studios, headquartered in Las Vegas with international operations in Seoul, South Korea, has been developing and publishing games such as DJMax Fever, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, The Wolf Among Us 2 and more. PM Studios has also built a reputation for producing limited physical releases, steelbooks and special collector’s editions for a range of titles, including Dispatch, Coffee Talk Tokyo, Zenless Zone Zero and Black Myth: Wukong.
At the heart of it all is PM Studios CEO and co-founder, Michael Yum who, himself, is an avid video game completionist and collector. More recently, he’s been hard at work on PANAX: not only a store from where customers can directly buy some of the aforementioned physical goodies, but also an online community that seeks to bring gamers together regardless of the platforms that they’re playing on.
During gamescom 2026, I got the opportunity to stop by the PM Studios booth and chat to Michael about the importance of physical video games and goodies in an increasingly digitalized industry, his ambitions for PANAX and more:
Hello and thank you so much for having me! Can you tell us more about yourself and what a day in the life of being the PM Studios CEO is like?
Michael Yum: Sure! I’m Michael Yum, the co-founder and CEO of PM Studios…I’ve been doing this for 20 years…I started off as a developer and so I love video games and I love making video games. I was fortunate enough, about 10 years ago-ish, that I got to help my friends publish their games who then told their friends about it. Now, I get to really enjoy helping people release their games. I’m really honored to be a part of all these projects these days.
How was it like entering the video game industry as a developer, more than 10 years ago?
Michael Yum: It was a very different time. I pitched a game, but I couldn’t find a publisher…and, you know, we didn’t have engines like Unity at that time nor did we have digital distribution. Platforms were very controlled. So, I had to beg Nintendo and Sony and everyone to release my game. It was much more difficult back then than it is now. It’s very different, too, because there weren’t as many games back then, so you had a higher chance of success. Now, that the platforms are a little bit more open, it’s become more difficult to find visibility.
As you’ve been telling me, you’ve been with PM Studios since the beginning: when looking back on your career at the company, what’s one thing that’s changed the most both inside the studio itself and throughout the gaming industry at large?
Michael Yum: I’m going to have to say…the internet. That led to everything going digital, right? It changed the way content is delivered, how games are being made and how resources are being shared. The internet has changed everything.
From Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game to the upcoming The Wolf Among Us 2, PM Studios publishes a wide array of games pertaining to various genres. To you, what is the mark of a game worth picking up for publishing?
Michael Yum: Our heart really lies in supporting indie titles. If I truly believe in the developer or we find something special in the game, then that is something we really want to support. With Avatar Legends, it was a very lucky process for me: I’ve known the developer for over 10 years now and we are really good friends. And so, after they met with me and they showed me the game, it was a perfect fit! I’m a big fighting game guy and I knew they were going to make a really good game and so, that one was a very smooth process. There was really nothing to it.
With The Wolf Among Us 2, it was another story. It’s a much bigger game and I’m usually doing a lot more indie stuff, but I’m a massive fan of the first The Wolf Among Us. I got to meet the team when they were working on the sequel and they told me a little bit about their struggles and they’ve also seen how I’ve been releasing a bunch of games and helping other companies out. They told me they’re struggling to get the game out, and so, I told them I’d be honored to work on this game!
Who wouldn’t want to work on The Wolf Among Us 2?! So, I helped come up with a plan, I met with the Telltale CEO many times and that was it! We hit it off after the first meeting!
And now The Wolf Among Us 2 is here at gamescom!
Michael Yum: And now they’re here! We’ve waited years to unveil this game. I kept telling them: “This is going to be the moment. We gotta make sure that we do everything right! We have to show them the proper way and continue to do so until the release.” So, we knew that gamescom was going to be a good place to unveil a lot more.
Moreover, PM Studios is also doing their part in releasing physical games. Given recent news from PlayStation with regards to the end of printing games to disc starting 2028, how does the future look like for your studio and how viable will it continue to be to release physical games?
Michael Yum: Physical video game releases have been a big part of both my life and this company’s life. I started making my games only in physical format, so it was really important for me to make discs part of our company culture. So, of course, this news was devastating to a lot of people, right? Throughout the years, I knew that this could potentially happen, so I thought that there could be other ways I could help the studios we’re working with. So, now, we’re starting to lean into merchandise, special editions and things of that nature.
As long as I can support physical games, I will. I’m going to find new ways to continue to still get products out there. And so, yeah, that’s why I started to develop PANAX, a platform for e-commerce, because I thought it was important to get developers and publishers connected directly to their fans.
If the goal is to continue to support physical video game and merchandise releases, through PANAX or otherwise, how important is it for PM Studios to continue to collaborate with companies like LostInCult, who are also doing their bit in preserving the physical future of games and video game culture?
Michael Yum: That’s a great partnership and when we started talking to those guys, it was like speaking to someone who’s looking to put together a Criterion Collection for games. Those guys are a little bit sad about what’s happening…the news is shocking to everyone, so I don’t have much more to reveal yet. Just know that a bunch of us are going to look for ways to keep physical games going.
With that being said, I developed PANAX not only as an e-commerce site, but also as a social network and video game database. It’s really a platform to bring all the gaming ecosystems together: you can create your account and link all of your other gaming accounts. It’s really about bringing games and communities together, not really the platforms, that’s why we called it PANAX. I think it’s going to be a big part of our company’s future.
Would it be fair to describe PANAX as a sort of Letterboxd for games?
Michael Yum: Yes! So, I mean, when you make your profile, you have your avatar and you can bind your gaming accounts. You can then start posting about games and reviewing them. That was kind of the first step on the player and user side. However, as someone who makes, publishes and distributes video games, I knew I needed to put stuff in there that would benefit us, too.
So, the first thing I launched was the e-commerce platform, which would help sell games, especially as marketplaces are dying out right now. I wanted to find a way to sell physical games and merchandise directly to customers. Of course, there is also stuff like Amazon, but that’s different. PANAX is developed for video games specifically, so it’s not congested with all kinds of stuff.
Are there any developers or any games that you think have found a new fanbase or a boom in popularity after selling on PANAX?
Michael Yum: Sure! So, PANAX is still at an early stage, but I’m very fortunate to be working with companies like Game Science and started doing Black Myth Wukong merchandise. Their problem is that they have a lot of Black Myth merchandise, but they can’t get it outside of China. So, on this platform, I help them get it in the hands of the world. I also worked with a company called GungHo, who is doing a collector’s edition for Trails in the Sky.
However, this product is so big, like the size of half a refrigerator, so, to put it into a distribution network would make it too expensive. But, we wanted to sell it to the customers at a low price, so, by going direct to the consumer, through PANAX, I was able to help them release the product without it costing a thousand dollars. There will be more physical collections like this one.
For example, we just made an announcement for Dispatch and right now fans can get the steelbook for the game from PANAX. Hopefully what we’re doing is very revolutionary—people who follow me know that I collect a lot of video games and I like to complete video games. So, I really thought about what I would want as someone who is going to buy stuff and play games. There will be a lot of cool stuff that I think will make everybody happy.
Speaking about playing and collecting games, you personally are a big trophy hunter on PlayStation, racking up over 360 platinum trophies to date. From one trophy hunter to another (by comparison, I only have a measly 69), what is it about a platinum trophy that makes chasing it worthwhile? And do you like to platinum games you and your studio have published?
Michael Yum: I have pretty bad OCD, to the point where I like to really start something and make sure I finish it. That’s why, when I collect video games, I go for the full set. I used to do a lot of achievements on XBOX, but, I think after I got introduced to platinum trophies, that’s really sealed the deal. I just like seeing that check mark and knowing that I 100% beat that game and that I can move on.
I also like having platinum trophies as an identifier that you’ve completed the game, so that really made the difference for me between achievements and trophies. I try to platinum every game I can, which is difficult, because I have a lot of work, but somehow, I still manage to get at least 30 platinums a year.
Before we wrap up, I wanted to thank you and your team’s work for bringing over the DJMax series of rhythm video games outside of Asia, as I’ve greatly enjoyed playing some of them on my VITA and PlayStation 4! Are there any games unavailable in English that you’d like to publish?
Michael Yum: To be honest, I’m very fortunate to have worked on so many games…I’ve worked on some games that never came out, so I hope one day I can still release those games. One of them was actually a DJMax game! I dream of a day I can actually see it come out.
Anything you’d like to add?
Michael Yum: I’m really proud of the new games that we’re working on and I’m really excited for the future of the company with PANAX. We got to announce a lot of partnerships on it and we have a lot more coming. I’m just hoping that I can really bring the community and games together and help connect them with developers through this platform.
