NCSoft to spin off AI, game divisions into four units

NCSoft Corp., a leading South Korean game developer and publisher, said on Monday it will spin off its artificial intelligence R&D and game development divisions into four subsidiaries to expedite its efforts to foster their technologies into global intellectual property.

The new units, to be established in February 2025, are tentatively named NC AI, Studio X, Studio Y and Studio Z.

NC AI will oversee AI development for game applications and be led by NCSoft’sAI and NLP research head Lee Yeon-soo.

Choi Moonyoung, one of NCSofts’s three chief business officers, will head Studio X in charge of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Throne and Liberty released last December.

Studio Y will be responsible for the shooting game project, LLL, and will be led by Bae Jae-hyun, vice president of the game developing company.

Studio Z is taking over the new title TACTAN and will be led by Seo Min-seok.

NCSoft will vote on the spin-offs at a Nov. 28 extraordinary shareholder meeting.

Alongside the organizational restructuring, it will offer voluntary redundancies and relocate employees to relevant units, after delivering weak results in the first half of this year.

Prior to the spin-offs, NCSoft split up its software business into two new units earlier this month: the product warranty and computer system management company NC QA (quality assurance), and an application and system software development and supply company NC IDS.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.