At the time, 38 Communications, a company that tracks unlisted Korean stocks, valued the company at ₩5.2 trillion. Korean magazine The Korea Times suggested that an initial public offering, through which Bluehole would become a public company, was 'out of question' due to Chang Byung-gyu's position as chairman of both Bluehole and the Fourth Industrial Revolution committee. Tencent reaffirmed their intents to fully acquire Bluehole in November 2017.

Subsequently, Tencent acquired 1.5% of Bluehole for a total of ₩70 billion.

Bluehole initially denied that any investment had been made, but later stated that they were in talks with Tencent in multiple partnerships, including the acquisition of an equity stake in Bluehole by Tencent. In August 2017, Chinese holding company Tencent announced that it had, following a rejected acquisition bid, invested an undisclosed amount of money into Bluehole. The company announced on 22 April 2015 that they had changed their name to simply Bluehole. Chang previously established Neowiz in 1997, along seven other co-founders, moved on to found search engine developer First Snow in 2005, and sold that venture in 2006. On 5 November 2018, all subsidiaries were reorganized under one parent company: Krafton Game Union.īluehole Studio was founded in Seoul in March 2007 by Chang Byung-gyu. Subsidiaries īluehole has acquired several development studios since its founding. China is a very important market for video games due to its population density, hence the collapse of companies is devastating for every videogame company, including Krafton. Video games are viewed as an 'electronic drug' and a 'spiritual opium', especially shooting videogames, which according to the Chinese government promote violence. Shares of several Chinese and foreign video game companies, including Tencent, which is the largest video game company in China and a provider for foreign companies to publish games in their country, fell due to new restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. The IPO was held on 10 August 2021 while its value dropped by 8.8% from the original asking price at the end of trading, it still ended with Krafton being valued at US$19.32 billion. The firm plans to raise ₩5.6 trillion (US$5 billion) at a market valuation of ₩30 trillion ( US$27.2 billion). The company announced its plans to file for an initial public offering in July 2021, filing its initial approval for listing on the Korea Stock Exchange in April 2021. Kim Chang-han, the CEO of the PUBG Corporation (current PUBG Studios) that developed PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, was named as CEO for Krafton. 'Krafton' was selected based on the names of craft guilds of the Middle Ages.

4.2 Games developed or published as 'Krafton'įollowing the success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds which had led to both investment from Tencent Holdings and expansion and acquisition of studios, Bluehole opted to establish Krafton on 5 November 2018 to serve as a holding company for its video game properties.

4.1 Games developed or published as 'Bluehole Studio'.

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