Kim Young-man
founder of HanbitSoft |
By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
A bold entrepreneur's ambition of making South Korea the vanguard of the computer game industry has ended as an unaccomplished mission.
HanbitSoft CEO Kim Young-man on Monday sold two thirds of his shares to a relatively unknown game company named T3 Entertainment, making it the new largest shareholder of Hanbit.
Kim, who founded Hanbit in 1999 as a local distributor of hit game ``StarCraft,'' said he will remain as the chairman for a while. But when reporters asked him about Hanbit's future on Wednesday, he passively handed over the questions to Kim Ki-young, the chief executive of T3.
``I decided to sell the shares because the two companies share the same vision of becoming a leader in the global game market,'' the outgoing CEO said in a press conference held on Wednesday.
The semi-retirement of the Hanbit founder shocked people in the gaming world because of the dedication and contribution he made to the computer gaming industry. Hanbit is one of the founding members of the Korea e-Sports Association and Kim served as the chairman of the organization in 2001 and 2004.
He also helped two TV broadcasters ― Ongamenet and MBC Games ― find a niche as the only 24-hour TV channels in the world dedicated to computer and video games. His continuous contribution to the gaming industry gave him numerous honorific positions, such as the title of president of Korea Association of Game Industry.
The 47-year-old built his fortune from distributing ``StarCraft,'' a strategic computer game made by Blizzard Studio of the United States. He had said that he first encountered the game at the E3 gaming expo in California in 2007, when he was one of the managers at LG LCD's software publishing business unit.
Instinctually, he decided to import the game _ a decision that changed his life as well as the shape of the Korean game industry. More than 6 million copies of ``StarCraft'' were sold in South Korea alone via the company he founded with his colleague. Now there are some 400 professional gamers in 12 professional clubs competing against each other in televised tournaments. Such popularity has created the term ``e-sports'' in Korea.
Kim was not satisfied with the achievements he had at home. He had considerable success by exporting a small golf game named ``Pangya'' to 44 countries around the world.
``Korean online games has extended its ideals from being a toy to becoming part of a cultural enterprise as the market becomes larger everyday,'' he had said in his opinion sent to the Korea Times in February 2007. ``It is urgent for Korea to start setting world standards in the gaming business.''
As the next step, Kim decided to finance a massive game project called ``Hellgate: London,'' which was developed by the same team that created ``StarCraft.'' He expected it would be a new milestone of Korean game industry's history. But the new game didn't do very well, yet, and Hanbit recorded a 7.2 billion won loss last year.
Now having yielded about two thirds of his shares to the newcomers from T3, Kim showed that he no longer has the same power he used to have.
When a reporter asked whether there will be downsizing of the organization, the old Hanbit boss said the company will need more manpower, not downsizing. But an executive of T3 immediately rebutted his remark by saying ``T3 aims to have a small but strong organization. We will reduce the organization where there is a need.''
``The Turbulent 10 Years'' a public relations official wrote in his MSN messenger ID _ so it was for Hanbit employees and CEO Kim.
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