April 25, 2024

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Wemade founder and Chairman Park Kwan-ho. (Wemade)

Park Kwan-ho, the chairman of game developer Wemade, joined South Korea’s echelon of billionaires last week, as the company’s stock valuation soared following the growing popularity of its new game, which is based on blockchain technology.

Park, 49, saw his stock value reach 3.3 trillion won ($2.77 billion) as of Nov. 18, which makes him the 10th richest person among individuals owning stocks in domestic listed companies, according to local market data provider FnGuide. Park, the largest shareholder of Wemade, owned 14.8 million shares, or 44.61 percent, of the game maker he founded in 2000 as of the end of September, the company’s quarterly report showed.

Among game company heads, Park is now second wealthiest, after Chang Byung-gyu, the chairman of Krafton, the game studio behind the hugely popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Chang was the eighth richest in terms of stock value, as his stock holdings in Krafton, which went public Aug. 10, amounted to 3.8 trillion won as of Thursday.

Park’s emergence as one of the country’s wealthiest people came as the share price of Wemade soared a whopping 494.5 percent in three months from Aug. 18. Wemade was the steepest rising stock during the same period, followed by Wemade Max, the blockchain-based game creator under the umbrella of Wemade, which jumped 462.41 percent. On Friday, the company’s stock price further increased by 4.64 percent to close at 237,000 won.

During the three months, Wemade unveiled the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Mir4, which applies a “play to earn” scheme and nonfungible tokens, and introduced WeMix, a platform where users can trade NFTs. The new game attracted as many as 1.3 million concurrent users globally on Nov. 12,

“Play to earn,” or P2E, allows users to convert in-game resources into tradable crypto assets, and game makers and users alike are increasingly adopting blockchain technologies. South Korea’s other small and large game companies, including NCSoft, Kakao Games, Webzen, Gamevil, Com2Us, and Pearl Abyss, have recently announced plans to launch games using a P2E model and NFTs.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)