Prepare to develop games using High BTS and revive Park Ji-won's Nexon management experience.
Park Ji-won, CEO of Hive, is preparing to expand the game business by utilizing artist intellectual property (IP) such as BTS (BTS).
CEO Park is expected to actively utilize the experience and know-how he has gained while working as CEO of Nexon Korea.
▲ Park Ji-won, CEO of Hive.
According to GameJap, a game recruitment site on the 10th, CEO Park has been steadily recruiting personnel related to game development since taking office in July.
If you look at Hive's explanation of recruiting manpower in the game job, you can see that he is promoting the development of mobile casual games using artist intellectual property.
CEO Park has also decided to merge with Hive, a game development and operation subsidiary. The final merger is scheduled for November 2.
Hive decided to absorb and merge SUPERBEE, saying, "We want to strengthen our competitiveness by maximizing business synergy while increasing management efficiency."
The merger and acquisition can be seen as an attempt to lay the foundation for strengthening the game business at the headquarters level.
Hive has been mainly engaged in the game business through collaboration with other game companies such as Netmarble and Com2us. It is a method of lending Hive's artist license to a game company and receiving fees.
Netmarble has released two BTS license-based games and will release one more. Com2uS publishes games based on the BTS character 'Tinythan' made by game developer Grampus.
Hive took over Superb in August 2019, expressing its intention to directly enter the game market. In February 2021, it also released a mobile rhythm action game called "Rhythm Hive" through Superb.
CEO Park said in a earnings conference call in the second quarter of this year, "We expect to serve fans with games developed directly by Hive in early or mid-2022."
CEO Park set a goal to grow Hive into a comprehensive platform company related to life as well as entertainment. In the process, it seems that it has also turned to games, a content business with high growth potential.
Bang Si-hyuk, chairman of the board of directors of Hive, also said in an interview in 2019, "Big games require collaboration with companies such as Netmarble, but we will make small games ourselves as we have to contribute to our ecosystem."
According to Newjoo, a global market research firm, the size of the global game market is expected to reach $217.9 billion as of 2023, increasing by an annual average of 9.4% since 2018.
Game and entertainment collaboration are also being activated. It is a method of using entertainment intellectual property for game development or combining the technology and know-how used in games with entertainment.
Looking at overseas cases, Netflix recently bought a U.S. game company Night School Studio and released five mobile games. In Korea, NCsoft is operating a fandom business platform Universe.
CEO Park is known to have led Hive's own game business even before he was appointed as CEO. It can be seen as taking advantage of his long experience in the game industry.
CEO Park worked for Nexon from 2003 to 2019. After joining as a general employee, he served as the CEO of Nexon Korea after serving as the head of Nexon's Japanese corporate operation division and general manager of global business.
When working for a Japanese corporation, it supported the success of the PC online game Maple Story. When he was CEO of Nexon Korea, he led the mobile game conversion process and gained experience in acquiring Net Games.
After joining Hive in April 2020, he took charge of domestic business as head quarter (HQ) CEO. He is in charge of overall corporate management while serving as CEO of Hive in July 2021.
