Recently, nxc, the holding parent company of Nexon, South Korea’s largest game company, issued a statement that Nexon founder Kim Jung Ju died in Hawaii on February 28 at the age of 54.
Although the specific cause of death was not disclosed, South Korean media claimed that Kim Jong woo had been treated for depression for some time.
According to Forbes 2021 South Korean rich list, Kim Jong Woo’s total wealth was as high as $10.9 billion, ranking third in South Korea.
Jin Zhengzhou and his partners founded Nexon in 1994 and once became one of the best game companies in South Korea and even Asia. The games produced by Nexon are well-known, including “go kart”, “dungeons and Warriors”, “Legend of rocky heroes”, “bubble hall”, “Adventure Island”, “realm of God”, “anti terrorist elite online” and other well-known online games are from this Korean company.
South Korea’s third richest man Kim Jong woo dies
According to foreign media reports, nxc said that Jin Zhengzhou has received regular treatment for depression since a long time ago, but his condition has deteriorated recently, which is very regrettable for the company. As of March 4, Nexon’s market value was about 2400 billion yen (about 131.5 billion yuan).
“It’s hard to express the grief of losing our friend and mentor, Jay Kim, who has had an immeasurably positive impact on the world. As a founder and visionary leader, Jay encourages people around him to ignore other people’s doubts and believe in their creativity,” Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney said in a statement
According to Korean media reports, Jin Zhengzhou left his wife and two teenage daughters. According to Forbes 2021 South Korean rich list, Kim Jong Woo’s total wealth was as high as $10.9 billion, ranking third in South Korea.
According to foreign media reports, Jin Zhengzhou has always focused on Philanthropy in recent years and was rated as one of the 15 Forbes charitable heroes in Asia in 2021. In 2017, he co founded the venture Charity Fund C program with a number of Korean Internet entrepreneurs In 2018, Jin Zhengzhou promised to donate US $93 million to fund the children’s hospital. At the same time, he has continued to fund the children’s Hospital in recent years.
It is worth mentioning that Nexon is also keen on philanthropy. The company donated 20 billion won (about US $16.6 million) to establish a children’s rehabilitation hospital in Seoul from 2013 to 2015.
full of childhood memories! Each one is classic
talking about the games produced by Nexon, the post-80s and post-90s are no strangers
According to Forbes, Kim founded Nexon in 1994 and developed it into one of the top game companies in Asia. Nexon developed the first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) “the land of the wind” in 1996.
Subsequently, Nexon successively acquired the widget that produced Adventure Island and the neople that developed dungeons and warriors, and merged the two companies into a subsidiary of Nexon. Through many mergers and acquisitions, Nexon has gradually grown into a Korean game giant.
One of Nexon’s most famous games is Adventure Island, which was launched in 2003. It has more than 180 million registered users worldwide. At present, it is operated by Shengqu game agent in China. Adventure Island created a free game mode, that is, users can play games for free, but they have to pay for virtual props.
In addition, Nexon’s well-known game IP also includes dungeons and warriors, bubble hall, go kart, rocky, anti terrorist elite online and so on. Nexon currently has more than 40 games and sells well in 190 countries / regions.
Nexon currently released games, source: Nexon official website
It is reported that Nexon moved its headquarters from South Korea to Japan in 2005. It was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2011, with an initial public offering of $1.2 billion, the largest IPO in Japan that year Nexon said at the time that it chose to list in Tokyo rather than Seoul because Japan is a larger and more complex market and can have easier access to international investors.
Just one year after listing, Kim’s personal wealth doubled from US $2.06 billion to US $4.3 billion, making him jump to No. 3 in the 2012 South Korean rich list from No. 9 in the previous year.
Although Nexon is headquartered in Tokyo, Jin Zhengzhou’s personal holding company nxc is located on Jeju Island.
According to foreign media reports, Jin Zhengzhou has always been very low-key to the media. In 2006, Jin Zhengzhou retired from the daily management of Nexon company.
According to Forbes’ official website, in 2016, Jin Zhengzhou was accused of offering bribes to a prosecutor, but he was finally acquitted due to the lack of evidence to prove what benefits he obtained. After being sued, Jin Zhengzhou publicly apologized and resigned from the Nexon board of directors, but continued to serve as the chairman of nxc.
the golden age of Korean games is moving away
however, in the last ten years, the glorious years of Korean games have gone away, and Nexon has been going downhill
In 2019, Jin Zhengzhou announced the sale of 98.64% shares of nxc company jointly held with his wife at a price of US $16 billion. Companies including Tencent, EA and Disney are regarded as potential buyers. Nexon holds 98% of the shares of Nexon, the parent company of Nexon. However, due to various reasons such as the price did not meet expectations, the sale ended in vain.
Nxc is a comprehensive group in South Korea. Its main business is games. In addition to Nexon, the largest game company in South Korea, nxc also participates in the business related to digital currency, including korbit, the Korean exchange In October 2018, nxc also acquired bitstamp, a digital currency exchange.
Previously, Nexon disclosed the financial results of fiscal year 2021 and Q4 in 2021 as of December 31, 2021. Nexon achieved revenue of 274462 million yen in fiscal year 2021, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 114888 billion yen (about 6.289 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 104.4%.
By region, the South Korean market is still the main source of performance, but regional profits, including South Korea, China and Japan, are declining. In fiscal year 2021, the revenue of Nexon Korea division was 250127 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 6.2%, and the profit was 109191 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 13.9%; The revenue of China’s segment was 3.15 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 3%, and the profit was 1.68 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 11.2%; The revenue of the Japanese segment was 5.042 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%, and the loss was 11.939 billion yen, which was further expanded compared with the loss of 4.338 billion yen in the same period last year. In addition, the revenue of North America decreased year-on-year, but the loss narrowed, the revenue of other regions decreased and the loss expanded.
From the product side, Nexon’s “old capital” phenomenon is serious. In recent years, Nexon has launched new works including “V4” and “blue archives”. However, due to various reasons, the response of these games is flat, and there are no more popular models like “dungeons and Warriors” and “go kart” more than ten years ago.
Nexon said in the financial report that the newly released blue archives in the Korean market exceeded expectations, FIFA ol 4 and dungeons and warriors set the highest revenue record, and the revenue of assault storm also doubled, but they were offset by the decline of revenue of adventure island. In China, various activities launched by dungeons and warriors have steadily increased user participation, but the number of active users and paying users is still at a low level.
