Kim Chang-han was the idea behind PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds, or PUBG, in 2017.
Kim Chang-han, a former computer prodigy son who won national coding competitions in South Korea in the 1980s, had reached its lowest point. It was 2014 and he had just laid off a third of the employees at his game startup. Since 2000, he has created three multiplayer online games at three startups that have failed.
“It was the darkest time in my life,” recalls Kim, 46. The following year, he sold his company to the company now known as Krafton Inc., which he joined as an executive producer.
Then his luck started to change. As a last-ditch attempt to succeed in the business, he decided to make what is known as the battle royale game, an online game where players compete against each other on an ever-smaller battlefield to be the last person to survive. “Every fiber of my being told me to play 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, launched PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, in 2017. It became one of the most successful games of all time, with the PC and console versions selling over 70 million copies and the mobile version being downloaded about 600 million times, according to Krafton.
The company is now planning an initial public offering (IPO) in mid-2021 that could be South Korea’s largest in years. The sale of shares could raise billions of dollars, said Kim, who became Krafton’s chief executive last year in an interview in Seoul, declining to provide further details.
The IPO can value the match at up to 30 trillion won ($ 27.2 billion), according to a January 5 report by Eugene Investment & Securities Co.
South Korea is expected to raise up to $ 10.9 billion, a record high, through more than 120 IPOs this year, according to the broker. KakaoBank Corp., the largest Internet-only creditor, and LG Chem Ltd.’s battery unit are expected to drive initial stock sales in 2021, according to the report. The rise in IPOs comes after South Korea’s benchmark stock index has risen 34 percent in the past 12 months, one of the best performers in the world.
The largest IPO of all time in the country was the $ 4.3 billion offering from Samsung Life Insurance Co. in 2010. This was followed by the $ 2.4 billion listing by Netmarble Corp., a gaming company with headquarters in Seoul in 2017.
Krafton, whose name represents a commitment to craftsmanship, manages four game studios, but PUBG is responsible for the vast majority of its sales and profits, according to Kim. It had revenues of more than $ 1.1 billion in the nine months ending in September, according to a company document.
Some people worry that the company is a “one-hit wonder,” said Han Kim, general partner and co-founder of Altos Ventures Management Inc., which owns Krafton shares. “I think the most important thing is how the company can use PUBG’s intellectual property and how it can make it an even bigger franchise.”
Krafton’s Kim said the company is creating an animation program that will be uploaded to streaming services and a web cartoon. She will eventually make films and dramas, he said. The company is open to acquisitions in these areas, said Kim.
Krafton founder Chang Byung-gyu is the largest shareholder with a 17 percent stake on September 30, followed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., which owns 16 percent through a subsidiary, according to a document from Krafton. Kim has 1.5 percent.
Kim won a personal computer contest organized by South Korea’s science ministry in 1985 when he was 10 and won several other national coding awards. He co-founded Ginno Games in 2009 after getting involved with two other startups and was “very frustrated” when the game failed.
But that is now behind, as Krafton prepared to go public. He said he is determined to expand the company’s gaming repertoire beyond its initial success. The company plans to launch a new Battle Royale mobile title this year that will be based on PUBG, another PUBG-related PC and console game next year and a survival horror game in 2022 that will represent the PUBG universe three centuries into the future.
“We will not continue to be a one-shot wonder,” said Kim.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by the NDTV team and is published from a syndicated feed.)