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Nexon

Nexon – Kim Jung-ju Founded The Company While Pursuing A Doctorate At KAIST.

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Pioneering in the world of digital entertainment, Nexon is a world-famous video game publisher. The company has brought several innovations into the gaming industry since 1994. For example, it was Nexon that first introduced a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in the world. The founders of the company are Kim Jung-ju and Jake Song and the current CEO of Nexon is Owen Mahoney. Though Nexon is famous all over the world as a Japanese enterprise, it was originally a South Korean venture in the gaming industry. At present, the headquarters of the company is based in Tokyo, Japan. Nexon has a very large market and it is the fourth largest online gaming company in Asia. The company offers video games for both PC and mobile users. 

Foundation & Initial Expansion 

In 1994, the two founders, Jung-ju and Song founded Nexon in Seoul, South Korea. Two years later, in 1996, the company published its first video game, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, which still today is available in the market. Many other titles followed this including QuizQuiz, Elance, Shattered Galaxy, and many more. After a few years, the company went into a mutual agreement with Solid Networks in 2000 and started its online gaming service in Japan. After a couple of years, the alliance with Solid Networks was dissolved and Nexon Japan Co., Ltd was formed as a subsidiary of the parent company. Though the company initially opened offices in South Korea and Japan, the games were available in several locations including Taiwan, China, Thailand, Brazil, Vietnam, Europe, Singapore, and North America. 

As the Japanese market of Nexon was expanding very rapidly the company decided to move its location to Tokyo. So, in 2005 the company relocated its headquarters, but South Korea’s market was also operational. In the same year, the company also entered the American market and established NX Games Inc. In 2008, Nexon made a big acquisition when it acquired Neople Inc. Through this wholly-owned subsidiary, the company became the developer of Dungeon & Fighter which is one of the most popular video games in China. In 2009, the company changed its name from Nexon Corporation to Nexon. 

Nexon
Image source: mk.co.kr

Present Days

In 2010, the South Korean business of the company acquired two companies in a row. They are Ndoors Corporation and GameHi Co., Ltd. The Korean business changed its name from Nexon Corporation to Nexon Korea Corporation in 2011. Eventually, the company decided to go public and filed its IPO by the end of 2011. The IPO was the largest in Japan in that year and also the second-largest for a technology company that year worldwide. A few years later, Owen Mahoney became the CEO and President of the company. 

Under the new leadership, the company eventually expanded to Taiwan in 2015. In 2016, the company acquired Big Huge Games in the United States followed by i Digital Connect Co., which eventually became Nexon Thailand Co., Ltd. Two more companies that have been acquired in recent years are Pixelberry Studios and Embark Studios AB. In 2020, Nexon showed interest to invest an amount of $1.5 billion in listed entertainment companies. But the company also announced that it doesn’t have any interest in acquiring the companies that it is investing in. Recently, AGBO, a film production company has sold a $400 million minority stake to Nexon which is currently valued at $1.1 billion. 

The Man Behind The Success

Kim Jung-ju is a South Korean businessman and an investor. He co-founded the company, Nexon while pursuing a doctorate at KAIST. Nexon is currently the largest gaming company in South Korea and under Kim’s leadership, the company released many innovative developments that the world has witnessed for the first time. Unfortunately, Kim passed away at the age of fifty-four and before his death, he was receiving treatment for severe depression. When he died, he was the third-wealthiest person in South Korea. 

Sebastian Knutsson : The Co-founder of ‘King’ & its Sagas

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It is inevitable that games are an enormously great way to pass the time and for the recreation of mind, be it offline (real-world) or online (virtual). But since the recent years, the ‘gaming’ (virtual) industry has been putting up a lot of effort to provide the best experience, and with the games that have been rolling out, it is hard to not let the spotlight fall on them. According to IAB (Trends -2016), mobile gaming will be the one to have more than 190+ million users which clearly tells the addictiveness of the games. One such creator of ‘addictive’ games is King.com (King) which is playing a major role in providing the world what it desires. The co-founder and the Chief Creative Officer of King, “Sebastian Knutsson” shares a story of his failures and successes, and how creativity can shake the world.

King.com was founded by Riccardo Zacconi, Toby Rowland, Sebastian Knutsson, Thomas Hartwig, Lars Markgren and Patrik Stymne, in 2003, in Sweden. Zacconi and Toby, after the selling of udate.com, joined four of the co-founders to start a new venture with the help of investments of Angel Investments which were provided by Melvyn Morris.

Sebastian-Knutsson
Image Source: svd.se

The company started with Morris as chairman, Zacconi and Rowland as co-CEOs, Sebastian Knutsson as CCO (Chief Creative Officer), CTO Thomas Hartwig, Managing Director Lars Markgren and Chief Systems Architect Patrik Stymne. All but Rowland are still with the company.

King, initially, focused on the production of web browser compatible games but the company nearly went bankrupt, as it generated no profit. A key investment that saved the company arrived just a day before the doom-day by Melvyn Morris. Within two years, the company started generating revenues with them, growing from $2.60 million in 2004 to $12.21 million in 2004. In 2005, Apax invested a massive $32.68 million with Index Ventures invested $5.65 million. “We became dominant in Europe” quoted Knutsson on the achievement of King.

Knutsson, in the company, is referred to as ‘the gamer guy’ and is the key man which designs games for King. He has been with the company since the very beginning with being at the CCO post, since June 2004. He also served as the Executive Product Developer from February 2003 to June 2004. He had done his BA from Stockholm School of Economics, which enables him to have a sharp business brain. He also co-founded ‘Spray’ which became the main link between Zacconi and him. Alongside Spray and King, he founded Fjord Network AB and Midasplayer.com Ltd. He currently is an investment committee member at Sweet Capital.

It was in 2009 when King again saw a downfall in its users’ count. It was because Facebook started to suck up their lot of users with the interactive games it brought up. “In 2009 and 2010, the growth was stagnant. We had this term when we were talking about our partners, as being ‘F by F’” said Sebastian, mocking their situation back in the day.

In October 2010, the company was revised and shook up the whole system within. The company wanted to integrate with Facebook. The web team was slashed in half, releasing coders to work on five new projects to crack Facebook.

Knutsson was the lead to all this. “We knew we had to manage the transition with improving the communication internally, managing that risk of trying to pivot and make sure the staff were part of that journey and understanding why we are doing it,” he added. Out of five games, one game was in vain, three did okay, and one did all the work that was required. These ‘saga’ games required very little of time investments, unlike the Zynga games. This, turned out to be very successful for the company, as the game ‘Bubble Witch Saga’ managed to gain more than 10 million players and became one of the most played games on Facebook. Their next release, which emerged from the Stockholm Studio of Knutsson, Candy Crush Saga topped the Charts, be it the Facebook or the play store. The game was all over, and this helped King in their IPO.

Knutsson refers to the ‘Saga’ concept as a very simple one. “It is the simplicity that is the strength, not its complexity.” “Candy Crush was our strongest game on Facebook; we knew we had to get it right.” Candy Crush and its Saga proved to be a gem for King as the game was played by more than 93 million people, more than a billion times daily in December.

As of now, King has 13 studios in different locations, is generating revenue of US $1.59 billion, net income of US $575 million (2014). Company’s valuation at IPO is 7.1 Billion. Sebastian owns more than 17 million shares of the company. (Third most in the company)

The life story of Sebastian Knutsson, the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of King.com, clearly shows that creativity never lets you down. He claims to have designed 10 out of the company’s 15 worst games ever but still leads the company to the best.