The news of the death of the late Nexon founder Kim Jeong-ju, who founded Nexon, one of the major game companies in Korea, has been a big shock to the game industry. This is why he introduced the world’s first graphic online RPG, Kingdom of the Winds in 1996, before the word MMORPG was even used, and left a clear footprint in the Korean game industry as well as the global game industry. Founder Kim Jung-ju, who founded Nexon in 1994, converted Nexon into a holding company system in 2006 and continued his steady stride through NXC.
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The late founder Kim Jeong-ju was born on February 22, 1968 in Seoul, and graduated from Gwangseong High School in Seoul, and graduated from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Seoul National University in 1991. Afterwards, he received a master’s degree in computer science from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 1993, and completed his doctoral program in 1996.
Nexon was founded in December 1994 when he was a student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Now, Nexon, a large game company with annual sales exceeding 2 trillion won, started small. The Champs Elysees officetel located at Exit 1 of Seolleung Station in Seoul was the starting point of Nexon. XL Games CEO Song Jae-kyung, who has established himself as a developer representing the domestic MMORPG genre, was the partner of founder Kim Jung-ju at the time.
After that, he established Mplay, a game developer, in 1999, and spun off Nexon’s mobile business team in 2001 to establish Mobile Hands, a specialized mobile game developer, and served as a representative.
Nexon, which was founded by founder Kim Jeong-ju, will open a period of revival of domestic online games that began in the 2000s. PC MMORPG MapleStory, which started its official service in April 2003, has established itself as Korea’s representative MMORPG by showing the sensibility of casual games and the unique growth path and content circulation structure of MMORPGs. After that, Widget Studio, the developer of MapleStory, was merged with Nexon in December 2004 and began to make a full-fledged move in the PC online game market.
Also, in December 2011, Nexon Japan was listed on the Tokyo Exchange to grow into a global game company. In December 2021, the market capitalization of Nexon’s Japanese subsidiary recorded 2.84 trillion yen (regarding 30 trillion won), ranking second following Nintendo among game companies listed on the Japanese stock market.
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Management ability is the most highly evaluated in the entire career of founder Kim Jung-ju. In particular, investment and M&A capabilities. Founder Kim Jung-ju embraced game developers such as Neople, which developed Dungeon & Fighter, Game High (now Nexon GT), and Endorz, which introduced Sudden Attack, and grew Nexon’s value together.
The Neople acquisition is one of the best examples of game company acquisitions by founder Kim Jung-ju. Founder Kim Jung-ju took over Neople, a game development company founded by Heo Min-hyeon, CEO of Wonder Holdings, an alumni of Seoul National University in 2008 for regarding 380 billion won. The game industry at the time was full of rumors regarding this acquisition. This is because, although Dungeon & Fighter, a game that has established a certain place in the game market, is being serviced, other cash cows are insufficient, and the status of Dungeon & Fighter is difficult to compare with now.
However, following the acquisition, Neople recorded sales of 350 billion won that year, and has steadily increased since then, recording sales of 1.13 trillion won in 2019. This means that founder Kim Jung-joo provided the most reliable support for the entire Nexon Group.
In April and May 2010, ahead of its listing on the Japanese stock market, it took over Ndoors and Game High, leading to the renewal of Nexon’s corporate image. Nexon, which had a strong image of servicing casual games for the younger age group until then, has established itself as a game company that can encompass a variety of genres, including Endorz, which is strong in the strategy simulation genre, and Game High, which developed the FPS game Sudden Attack.
In addition, it acquired JCE (now Joy City) in 2011 and Bullion Games in 2015. In 2013, it took over a portion of Big Hughes Game, a mobile simulation game developer, through Nexon’s Japanese subsidiary, followed by a complete acquisition in 2015. there is.
In fields other than the game industry, founder Kim Jung-ju’s investment ability stood out. Founder Kim Jung-joo became a hot topic when he was CEO of Nexon Holdings and held a 6.83% stake in NHN and held a higher stake than CSO Lee Hae-jin and NHN CEO Kim Beom-soo at the time.
In addition, he also owned a 4.8% stake in Gretek (currently GOM & Company), which had a high reputation among domestic Internet users by servicing GOM Player and GOM TV. According to the game industry, the time when the founder Kim Jung-ju took over the stake in Gratek was before GOM TV was released to the public.
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This business capability shined even following serving as the CEO of NXC. He expanded his activities by investing in blocks, strollers, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Founder Kim Jung-ju at this time began to be known as the entrepreneur Kim Jung-ju rather than the game Kim Jeong-ju.
In 2017, when the cryptocurrency boom began, Korbit, a major domestic cryptocurrency exchange, was acquired at an amount of over 90 billion won, and in 2018, Bitstamp was also acquired. Founded in 2011, Bitstamp is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Europe.
It is also noteworthy that the company continued its efforts to secure global intellectual property rights (IP).
In 2021, regarding 1 trillion won was invested in Hasbro, a US toy company, and Bandai Namco Holdings, the parent company of a major Japanese game company, Konami Holdings, and Segasami Holdings.
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In addition, founder Kim Jung-ju continued to invest in various industries, not limited to games or IT. In 2020, animal feed manufacturer Serrere was acquired through its subsidiary Agrasdelic, which is a pet food company acquired by NXC in 2017.
Investments also continued in Canadian apparel company Moosefashion and Norwegian luxury stroller maker Stokke. Although he sold his stake to Lego once more, the fact that he invested in Bricklink, a Hong Kong online Lego trading brokerage, is also considered one of the major investment cases of founder Kim Jung-ju.
