Kim Chang-han was the idea for PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds or PUBG in 2017.
Kim Chang-han, a former computer prodigy who won national coding contests in South Korea in the 1980s, had reached his lowest point. It was 2014 and he had just laid off a third of the employees of his gaming startup. Since 2000, he had created three online multiplayer games on three startups that were completely down.
“It was the darkest moment of my life,” Kim, 46, recalled. The following year, he sold his company to the company now known as Krafton Inc., to which he joined as executive producer.
Then his fortune began to change. As a last resort to succeed in business, he decided to make what is known as a real battle game, an online game where players compete with each other on an increasingly small battlefield to be the last person standing. “Every fiber of my being told me to make this game,” he said.
Kim convinced Irishman Brendan Greene to join the company and move to South Korea as the game’s creative director.
Bluehole Inc., as Krafton was called at the time, released PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG in 2017. It became one of the most successful games of all time, with PC and console versions selling over 70 million. copies and the mobile version. downloading about 600 million times, according to Krafton.
Now, the company plans an initial public offering (IPO) in mid-2021 that could be South Korea’s largest in recent years. The sale of shares could raise billions of dollars, Kim said in an interview in Seoul, which became Krafton’s CEO last year, in which he declined to give further details.
The IPO could value the launch of up to 30 trillion won ($ 27.2 billion), according to a January 5 report by Eugene Investment & Securities Co.
According to the broker, South Korea will raise up to $ 10.9 billion, a record, through more than 120 IPOs. According to the report, KakaoBank Corp., the main Internet-only provider, and the battery of LG Chem Ltd. are expected. make initial stake sales in 2021. The rise in IPOs comes after South Korea’s benchmark stock index rose 34% in the past twelve months, one of the best results in the world.
The country’s largest IPO was Samsung Life Insurance Co.’s $ 4.3 billion bid. in 2010. It was followed by the $ 2.4 billion list of Netmarble Corp., a Seoul-based gaming company, in 2017.
Krafton, whose name represents a commitment to craftsmanship, manages four gaming studios, but PUBG accounts for the vast majority of its sales and profits, according to Kim. It had revenue of more than $ 1.1 billion in the nine months ending September, according to a company filed.
Some people have doubts about whether the company is a “one-off wonder,” said Han Kim, general partner and co-founder of Alto Ventures Management Inc., which has shares in Krafton. “I think the most important thing is how the company can use PUBG’s intellectual property and how it can turn it into an even bigger franchise.”
Kim de Krafton said the company is creating an animated program that will be uploaded to streaming services and a web design. He will eventually make movies and dramas, he said. The company is open to acquisitions in these areas, Kim said.
Krafton founder Chang Byung-gyu is the largest shareholder with a 17% stake as of Sept. 30, followed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., which owns 16% through a subsidiary, according to a statement from Krafton . Kim has 1.5 percent.
Kim won a personal computer contest organized by the South Korean science ministry in 1985 when she was 10 years old and claimed several other national coding awards. He co-founded Ginno Games in 2009 after participating in two other startups and was “very frustrated” when his game failed.
But that’s all behind Kim now, as Krafton prepares to go public. He said he was determined to expand the company’s gaming repertoire beyond its initial success. The company plans to launch a new Battle Royale title for mobile this year that will be based on PUBG, another PUBG-related console and PC game for next year, and a 2022 horror survival game that will represent the PUBG universe three centuries later.
“We’re not going to stay like a one-hit wonder,” Kim said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)