NCsoft Finds Breakthrough in Collaboration With Domestic and Foreign Partners
Aug 11, 2024
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NCsoft announced on the 5th that it made an initial investment of $3.5 million (about 4.8 billion won) in Sweden's new game company Moon Rover Games on the 30th of last month, and made a stake and pan investment of 37 billion won in Big Game Studio, a leading subculture game developer in Korea.
With this investment, Big Game has secured global publishing rights and stakes in big games for the new subculture genre 'Breakers: Unlock the World'. The two companies said they have a long-term partnership to grow together and push for close cooperation in game development and technology and business.
Last year, Big Game released RPG 'Black Clover Mobile: The Opening of Fate' based on the popular animation IP 'Black Clover' to the global market, recognizing its development and gameability, and is developing an animation RPG 'Breakers' as its next film.
Two days later, on the 7th, it announced that it had established a joint venture (JV) 'NCV GAMES' (NCV Games) with VNG, Vietnam's leading IT company, to develop the Southeast Asian market. Major executives from both companies, including NCsoft CEO Kim Taek-jin and VNG CEO Lee Hong-min, attended the signing ceremony held at the VNG campus in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, on the 6th.
Founded in 2004, VNG is a comprehensive Internet company that develops and operates Vietnam's national mobile messenger app 「Zalo" and continues to grow in both the platform and content business sectors through active business diversification as Vietnam's first unicorn company (company value of more than KRW 1 trillion). It operates businesses such as AI, electronic payment, and digital business as well as Zalo and online game services, and already provides 130 types of games, including popular global games, throughout Southeast Asia.
NCV Games, a new corporation, is responsible for services and operations in Southeast Asia for NCsoft IP. Starting with the launch of Lineage 2M in the second half of this year, NCsoft's games will be introduced to six major Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. NCsoft said that VNG will expand new services by combining the capabilities and expertise it has secured in the Southeast Asian market in the mid to long term.
In its second quarter earnings announcement on the 5th, NCsoft said it had 368.9 billion won in sales and 8.8 billion won in operating profit. In particular, operating profit fell 66% compared to the previous quarter and 75% compared to the same period last year, which is a shocking figure that barely escaped the deficit. It can be said that it is a crisis situation in which new works do not support at a time when the popularity of the 'Lineage' IP has declined. Accordingly, NCsoft announced its plan to overcome this by strengthening its own development capabilities and actively collaborating with M&A to develop global markets, but it is quickly implementing it.
Park Myung-moo, co-chairman of NCsoft, said "Recently, securing new IPs promised earlier this year through domestic and foreign investments has entered a full-fledged implementation stage. This is the beginning of NCsoft's change" and emphasized that "We will secure the competitiveness of existing IPs and continue to release new games without disruption".
bluesky@sportschosun.com
