NHN, Focused Development of Game Business at Headquarters

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] NHN is accelerating efforts to rebuild its reputation as a leading game company. The plan is to consolidate the group's foundational gaming business capabilities at the headquarters for focused development. Alongside this, the company will also pursue structural efficiency within the group centered on four core businesses: content, technology, payment, and commerce.

◆ Consolidating gaming business capabilities = NHN announced on the 14th that it will absorb and merge its gaming subsidiary NHN Bigfoot on October 1. This merger comes in response to internal and external changes surrounding the gaming industry. Recently, with the trend toward rationalizing regulations in the gaming sector, operational stability has been secured, and as new businesses within the group have entered a stable growth phase, conditions have been created to focus on the core gaming business.

In particular, Hangame’s flagship mobile web board game, "Hangame Poker," climbed to 10th place in Google Play’s revenue rankings on the 9th for the first time in about a year. The effects of large-scale brand marketing campaigns launched since May and the easing of web board game regulations implemented from July 1 are gradually becoming visible. An NHN official explained, "Amid the blockchain-centered trend changes in the gaming industry, it was necessary to consolidate the business capabilities that had been dispersed between the parent company and subsidiaries into one place to actively leverage NHN’s abundant know-how in managing in-game assets and lead the industry."

◆ Integration of gaming subsidiaries followed by merger = Earlier this year, the gaming subsidiaries NHN Bigfoot, NHN PixelCube, and NHN RPG were consolidated into NHN Bigfoot, and through this merger, NHN has once again solidified its position as a gaming company.

Based on its domestic No. 1 competitiveness in the web board game sector, NHN plans to grow into a global gaming company covering various genres. Since the launch of Hangame in 1999, NHN has accumulated over 20 years of expertise in managing in-game assets. The company’s strategy is to lead the blockchain gaming market in the future by maximizing fun while maintaining a healthy economic ecosystem.

From the second half of this year, NHN will sequentially release a diverse lineup of P&E (play and earn) games across genres such as Darkest Days, Uparu Odyssey, sports betting prediction, social casino, RPG, and SNG.

◆ Maximizing corporate value through group restructuring = NHN is actively pursuing group structural efficiency based on a strategy of selection and concentration. Centered on the four core businesses of content, technology, payment, and commerce, the company plans to reorganize its currently 82 consolidated subsidiaries into about 60 by 2024 to maximize management efficiency.

NHN plans to create various synergies among different business sectors, including NHN Cloud, which operates AI businesses, and NHN Payco, which manages payment and point services.

NHN is also strengthening its business capabilities through collaboration with other companies and M&A. NHN Cloud recently acquired the cloud company "Croscent" and has begun to actively develop its DaaS (Desktop as a Service) business. NHN Doorey is targeting the collaboration tool market in partnership with Hancom.

Jung Woojin, CEO of NHN, stated, "To seize new growth opportunities in the rapidly changing gaming industry, we aim to concentrate business capabilities at headquarters and respond more proactively. The headquarters will expand its scale centered on the gaming business, while simultaneously driving the co-growth of subsidiaries’ new businesses in content, technology, payment, and commerce, growing into a global top-tier tech company."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.