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Netmarble

Netmarble Corporation

Native name	넷마블 주식회사
Company type	Public
Traded as	KRX: 251270
Industry	Mobile game Web game
Founded	March 1, 2000; 24 years ago (2000-03-01)
Founder	Bang Jun-hyuk
Headquarters	Guro District, Seoul, South Korea
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Park Sean (CEO)[1]
Products	Online games
Operating income	KRW 294 billion (2016)[2]
Net income	KRW 209 billion (2016)[2]
Total assets	KRW 1,957 billion (2016)[2]
Total equity	KRW 1,310 billion (2016)[2]
Owner	Bang Jun-hyuk (24.12%) CJ ENM (21.78%) Tencent (17.52%) NCSoft (6.8%)[3]
Number of employees	3,000 non-consolidated in Korea (2016)[2]
Subsidiaries	Kabam Kung Fu Factory Jam City, Inc. (minority stake)
Website	[1] [2]

Netmarble Corp. (Korean: 넷마블 주식회사) is a South Korean mobile game developer, which was founded in 2000 by Bang Jun-hyuk.^[4]

Overview[edit]

Netmarble developed Lineage 2: Revolution in 2015 and released to the public that same year. As of 2019 L2R became one of the highest-grossing mobiles in the market; exceeding 924 million dollars in 11 months since its release. Currently, Netmarble continues to update and bring new content to L2R.

Netmarble produces role-playing mobile games. As of 2015, it had more than 3,000 employees and served over 120 countries worldwide. In May 2017, Bang took the company public, raising $2.4 billion.^[4]

Netmarble has developed mobile games including Seven Knights, Raven (Evilbane in the U.S.) and Everybody's Marble. It also claims a large shareholder stake in SGN, a casual game developer, and has a strategic partnership with CJ ENM.^[5]

Since 2015, the company has licensed Disney-owned properties to produce games such as Marvel: Future Fight (2015),^[6] Disney Magical Dice (2016),^[7] and Star Wars: Force Arena (2017).^{[8][9][10][11]}

In 2017, Netmarble acquired North American interactive entertainment company Kabam.^[12]

In 2018, Netmarble named Park Sean as its new CEO. Park, the former chief strategy officer of the operator of KakaoTalk, co-headed Netmarble with incumbent chief Kwon Young-sik.^[1]

In April 2018, Netmarble acquired 25.71% in Big Hit Entertainment, the agency of Korean boy group BTS and TXT, becoming its second largest shareholder.^[13] As of 2021, Netmarble owns 19.31% of the Big Hit Entertainment after it changed its name to HYBE Corporation^[14]

Netmarble and Disney's partnership significantly deteriorated near the end of 2018 when the former announced that it can no longer support Disney Magical Dice and Star Wars: Force Arena, and eventually shut down both games,^{[citation needed]} leaving Future Fight as the only Disney-based game it supported.

In February 2021, the company acquired Los Angeles based developer Kung Fu Factory.^[15]

On August 20, 2021, the company established a subsidiary label known as Metaverse Entertainment which partnered up with Kakao Entertainment to manage musical artists.^[16] Five days later, Kabam released a sequel to Future Fight, titled Marvel Future Revolution, which was an ambitious online open-world superhero action RPG that ran on Unreal Engine 4, employed several notable voice actors and offered a more cinematic presentation. On January 25, 2023, the label debuted a virtual girl-group known as Mave:.^[17]

As of 2021, Netmarble shareholders consisted of Bang Jun-hyuk (24.12%), CJ ENM (21.78%), Tencent (Han River Investment Pte. Ltd.) (17.52%), NCsoft Corp. (6.8%) and Others (29.78%).^[18]

Following the poor performance of Marvel Future Revolution, Netmarble announced in June 2023 that the game would shut down on August 25, 2023.^[19] On January 19, 2024, Netmarble shut down its metaverse subsidiary, laying off 70 employees.^[20]

Games[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website
• Business data for Netmarble:
  • Bloomberg
• Google
• Reuters
• Yahoo!