Kim Taek-jin, NC CEO, "We will strengthen global competitiveness"

Kim Taek-jin, CEO of NCSoft.

Kim Taek-jin, CEO of NCSoft, announced plans to enhance the company's global business competitiveness.

In his greeting at the regular shareholders' meeting held at the company headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Kim said, "We will complete a successful platform diversification led by Throne and Liberty (TL) and diversify our portfolio with four new non-massively multiplayer online role-playing games (non-MMORPGs)."

He added, "We were the first in the domestic gaming industry to apply artificial intelligence (AI) technology to game development, and recently, through 'Project M,' we introduced 'Digital Human,' a core synthesis of AI and visual technologies."

He continued, "Generative AI like ChatGPT is rapidly transforming corporate environments, and the pace of change in the gaming industry is even greater. NCSoft has been preparing AI for over 10 years and is training its own ChatGPT-like AI," he added.

He also emphasized the company's commitment to global market expansion. Kim stated, "We plan to lead challenges for technological innovation and strengthen our global business competitiveness through various forms of partnerships with global companies."

Kim also explained the company's ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management achievements. He emphasized, "We received an AA rating from Morgan Stanley Capital International, a comprehensive A rating from the Korea ESG Standards Institute, the highest among domestic game companies, and were the only domestic game company included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Korea Index, officially recognized by domestic and international ESG evaluation agencies for the excellence of our ESG management."

NCSoft also revealed plans to actively pursue mergers and acquisitions (M&A) using its cash assets.

In response to a shareholder's question about utilizing the accumulated cash assets within the company, Hong Won-joon, NCSoft's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), replied, "We are considering an M&A strategy called 'bottom fishing' not only for game companies but also other sectors, and we will strive to show results in the future."

Meanwhile, at the shareholders' meeting, with the consent of the majority of shareholders, Professor Choi Young-joo of Pohang University of Science and Technology was reappointed as an outside director, and Professor Choi Jae-chun of Ewha Womans University and Jung Gyo-hwa, Head of Policy and Legal Affairs at Netflix Korea, were newly appointed as outside director and audit committee member, respectively. The director remuneration limit was frozen at 20 billion KRW.