NCSoft won't sell NC Dinos baseball team despite slow earnings

NCSoft founder and co-CEO Kim Taek-jin, left, and new co-CEO Park Byung-moo participate at the online press event on Wednesday to outline the company's plans for this year. [NCSOFT]

Game publisher NCSoft will not sell off the NC Dinos baseball team to make up for its sagging earnings but instead cut down costs to boost revenue streams.

The company has been suffering double-digit declines in both annual operating profit and revenue for 2023, having failed to find the next intellectual property (IP) that could continue the legacy of its massively popular Lineage franchise, which kept its game business afloat for decades.

Selling off its baseball team was suggested as a way for the company to trim costs, but new co-CEO Park Byung-moo rejected the call.

“I am aware that shareholders have been concerned about the company’s running of the baseball team, and I have been carefully reviewing the matter since last year, gathering various opinions from our employees,” Park said on Wednesday at an online conference held to outline NCSoft’s plans for 2024.

“However, I concluded that in the long term, the team will create synergy with NCSoft, considering that NCSoft is also a content company, and would also be helpful in-game promotion. Thus, we’ve decided to curtail expenses rather than to sell off the team.”

NCSoft is facing a dual leadership structure for the first time since the company’s establishment in 1997. Park will be officially appointed as the co-CEO alongside founder Kim Taek-jin when the agenda is passed at the general shareholders’ meeting on March 28.

Kim will focus on expanding its game business portfolio and overseas market, while Park will focus on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of companies that could serve as NCSoft’s new growth engines.

Kim, who previously headed the Korean private equity firm VIG Partners, has been a non-executive director of NCSoft since 2007.

“The top M&A candidates are companies that can expand NCSoft’s game portfolio and contribute to market expansion,” Park said.

"However, we need to be prudent in making such large-scale investments, and there are many conditions to consider — they also need to be financially stable to be profitable to our shareholders.

“We will also make stake investments to acquire the publishing rights to develop game IPs,” Park added.

Kim says that when discovering new IPs, the company’s priority is to create games that offer new types of entertainment.

“We are collaborating with Sony Interactive Entertainment to utilize its IPs, and we also plan to meet with global Big Tech companies this week [for possible collaboration],” Kim said. “We also plan to actively utilize AI technologies to reduce the cost and time spent in game development.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]