According to this Bloomberg article, it looks like Krafton’s initial public offering on the KOSPI is a go. If valued at the top of the range, it will make the founder Chang Byung-gyu a multi-billionaire at $3.5 billion USD (he will own a 14% stake in the company after the IPO). Chang’s wife will also make out in the deal as well Krafton’s CEO, Kim Chang-han. The article makes Kim Chang-han’s role seem one of computer prodigy that started a company (Ginno Games which he was a co-founder of, and not founder as the article states) that Bluehole later acquired, to one of hit maker with PUBG. But it misses all the relevant details prior to the PUBG pitch.
Krafton (previously known as Bluehole, Inc) has been privately held since its inception (with Chang owning 20% of those shares). Ever since the unexpected success of PUBG, the company has been trying to find ways to parlay that into a bigger payday (including attempts to spin off PUBG Corp as a completely separate entity that hopefully a buyer would pickup), and then performing a complete corporate re-branding (which is when they changed the corporate name from Bluehole, Inc to KRAFTON). Somewhere in between all of this was their ridiculous lawsuit against Epic (which they filed only in South Korea and quickly withdrew) and another infringement suit against a Chinese Government committee for denying PUBG Corp’s trademark filing for “Chicken Dinner”.
Krafton CEO Kim got to that position via being the CEO of PUBG Corp. PUBG Corp itself was previously known as Bluehole Ginno (which came about from Bluehole’s acquisition of Ginno Games which was making a Diablo inspired MMO that was originally named Immortal Online, and was later renamed Devilian prior to Ginno Games being acquired by Bluehole. After that acquisition, Bluehole revamped the game including a rework of the graphics (borrowing a lot of assets from TERA). Kim was a co-founder of Ginno Games and became CTO of Bluehole Ginno while also being executive producer for Devilian. Devilian’s failure on both PC and mobile, is what led to PUBG since Kim was the one who looked for alternative avenues as Bluehole Ginno’s CEO flailed around trying to sell the notion of the Devilian IP (which no one was willing to license). Kim was the one who talked to Greene which led to PUBG. After that became an early access success on Steam, all the dominoes fell including the initial attempt to merge Bluehole Ginno with parent Bluehole before calling it off before they finally came to the decision to rename it to PUBG Corp (as a subsidiary of Bluehole).
Krafton has gone through various head spinning organizational restructurings (including spinning off PUBG Corp as its own independent company, only to re-integrate it back into the latest iteration of Krafton) to make it more attractive for a buyout or further investments (including an earlier attempt to go public) which never came to fruition. It looks like those folks are finally getting that payday they’ve been trying to angle for since 2017. The article notes Chang plans to donate around 100 billion KRW (approximately $88.7 million) to Krafton employees (the current estimated headcount is 271 employees) which will represent a huge payday if dolled out equally. The company likely will also offer actual company based compensation in the form of employee stock options and RSU’s.
CEO Kim is noted to being determined to not have Krafton be a one-hit wonder with PUBG. Unfortunately, every attempt since PUBG on both PC and mobile, has not born fruit (most of their TERA mobile efforts has not gone anywhere/been sunset, and their mobile social sim didn’t even last 3 months). Elyon is set to launch later this year but it will end up being a niche title like TERA (it remains to be seen if it will have that type of longevity though). The company is naturally going to try to leverage PUBG as much as it can in future endeavors. The company is trying its hand at crossing over into other media spaces including Korean dramas, western media, and traditional novels that also crossover into digital. Having a hit isn’t easy though; Blizzard Entertainment learned how challenging that is when they tried their hand at the WOW movie (and that is with memorable characters from the IP). I guess time will show how all of this funding from their being a publicly traded company, ends up bearing fruit (as there will now be more accountability).
