The two largest online gaming giants in South Korea, NCSoft and Nexon, are divorcing.
Korea is one of the top 5 gaming markets in the world. It ranks behind the USA, China, and Japan, but ahead of Germany at rank 4. And there was a strange situation: the two resident giants in online gaming, Nexon and NCSoft, formed a sort of alliance. Nexon purchased many stakes in NCSoft in 2012. The reason was the arrival of “western companies” in the country such as Riot (Lol) or Blizzard (WoW), which snatched up market shares.
Nexon’s plan presumably was to turn the existing strong brands of NCSoft into lucrative games abroad with Free2Play models.
However, the collaboration led to publicly aired conflicts in early 2015. Nexon found the direction NCSoft was taking not particularly profitable. A power struggle was looming. Nexon accused the executives of NCSoft of subtle nepotism and that there was too little focus on returns. Nexon wanted more say. NCSoft rebuffed this and initiated measures to counteract a hostile takeover.
After the public uproar about this power struggle has simmered down a bit, Nexon has now somewhat grumpily sold all the shares it held in NCSoft, claiming that the expected synergies had not emerged.
The whole story has always been made more piquant by the fact that the masterminds of both companies were likely close friends in their school days. However, the tone in which Nexon spoke publicly about NCSoft and the cooperation was icy.
The larger of the two elephants, Nexon, is known for games like MapleStory, Vindictus, or Atlantica Online and plays little role here in the West.
NCSoft, on the other hand, has titles at home such as Guild Wars 2, WildStar, Blade and Soul, and Aion that we know here in the West. The big money maker for them in Korea, however, is the aging Lineage.
