NHN merges game units under NHN Bigfoot for P2E foray
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South Korea’s leading game and online service provider NHN Corp. has realigned its businesses to focus more on social casino games under game developer NHN Bigfoot this year with hopes to expand its presence overseas and revenue base from play-to-earn business.
NHN Bigfoot said Monday that it has merged with NHN PixelCube and NHN RPG as of this month. NHN Bigfoot boasts mobile web-board games such as Hangame Poker and Baseball Nine and other sports simulation games. The company plans to create synergy in diverse game genres like web-board, casual, and sports through the merger with NHN PixelCube that has engaged mainly in mobile casual games and NHN RPG in development of role-playing games and first-person shooter genre games.
With the merger, NHN Bigfoot has expanded in size to become a mid-size game developer with 100 billion won ($83.5 million) in annual sales and 300 employees. It is expected to play key role in carrying out NHN’s game business along with mobile game-focused NHN PlayArt based in Japan.
Kim Sang-ho
The merged entity will be led by Kim Sang-ho, chief executive of NHN Bigfoot. Kim joined NHN in 2003 and directed NHN USA and game sourcing and publishing business. He took on his current role in 2018 and is evaluated as having led stable business across the board.
NHN Bigfoot – led by NHN’s leading brand Hangame – plans to solidify its top position in the country’s PC and mobile web-board market and in the global scene secure competitiveness with Match 3 Puzzle and social casino games. The company is hoping to take the lead in play-to-earn (P2E) genre that has emerged as new paradigm in game industry.
Game publishers from home and abroad have been expanding investment in block chain-based social casino games. Cash trade in games is illegal in Korea and Japan but there is projection that social casino game market will grow with introduction of P2E games and eased regulation.
Social casino games refer to those that copy offline casino games like poker, slot machines, and card games. In Korea, social casino games only run on free operation as game money charging and exchange are banned due to speculation reasons. Up to 500,000 won payment is allowed when it comes to gambling-based web-board games.
Kim from NHN Bigfoot said that the company will reborn as a Play & Earn star player by integrating global business strength and game money management capacity based on data science as well as production knowhow of diverse game genres amid changing environment from PC to mobile to block chain.
By Hwang Soon-min and Lee Eun-joo
