KB News DeskKorean game developer’s founder Park Kwan-ho sells entire stake to Hong Kong-based investment company’s local subsidiary
Wemade — a Korean game developer known for its hit massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG, franchise the Legend of Mir — has been sold to China linked company NeoPulse.
According to Wemade on Tuesday, founder Park Kwan-ho signed a stock purchase agreement with NeoPulse, a Korean subsidiary of Hong Kong-based investment company Shengsong Investment, to sell his entire 39.33 percent stake in Wemade worth about 920 billion won ($593 million). Once the stock purchase is complete on October 30, NeoPulse will hold a 40.25 percent stake in Wemade.
“The game industry is not contained in a single country anymore,” said Park in a message to the employees of Wemade after the stock sale was announced.
“We’ve passed the era where we drew the future of our company in just the Korean market. The expansion into a bigger market is not a ‘choice’ but a ‘necessity for survival.’ I’ve decided that now is the time to lay down the stepping stone for Wemade to take the leap into the bigger stage,” he said.
Wemade said NeoPulse cited the Korean game firm’s world-class MMORPG development capabilities and the strong presence of Mir as an intellectual property in China as the key reasons behind the investment decision.
Following the acquisition, NeoPulse plans to push to develop new titles aimed at the global market, including China, while diversifying and advancing its business models in cooperation with China’s leading IT firms, game developers and publishers. NeoPulse has close ties with Alibaba and China’s major gaming companies.
Wemade emphasized that the deal was centered around a shared vision of evolving into future games based on artificial intelligence and accelerating the expansion in the Chinese market.
Under the belief that AI will fundamentally change the game industry, the two sides said they will proactively introduce cutting-edge AI technology across game development, next-generation graphics and gaming services to enhance the quality of content and the user experience at the same time.
“AI is changing the way we make games and enjoy them,” Park said. “The market expectations for the completeness and quality of a game are higher than ever. We must be a company that does not follow the trend but leads it before others.”
